The Raven's Song
by SilverRose208
Summary: The story of Commander Avery Shepard, nicknamed The Raven.  Like so many others have done, this is a retelling of ME1. FemShep.  Updates going forward will generally be on Fridays. Update, 4-22-11: This is looking like it will eventually become Shenko.
1. Check In

A/N: This is BioWare's playground; I just use the swingset every once in a while. Nothing belongs to me.

* * *

_The Common Raven (Corvus corax) is an all-black bird which typically lives about 10 to 15 years in the wild, although lifespans of up to 40 years have been recorded. An omnivore, Common Ravens are extremely versatile and opportunistic in finding sources of nutrition, feeding on carrion, insects, cereal grains, berries, fruit, small animals, and food waste. Some remarkable feats of problem-solving have been observed in the species, leading to the belief that it is highly intelligent. Over the centuries, it has been the subject of mythology, folklore, art, and literature. In many indigenous cultures, including those of Scandinavia, ancient Ireland and Wales, Bhutan, the northwest coast of North America, and Siberia and northeast Asia, the Common Raven has been revered as a spiritual figure or god. – _Galactic Codex, Common Birds of North America (Earth)

**Dr. Chakwas **smoothed a hand over the last of the medical bay bunks, her nimble fingers ensuring sheets were firmly tucked and pillows perfectly aligned. These were her favorite days: upon boarding the Normandy, the well and able-bodied crewmembers would march down to see her in order to file their final paperwork – their health and immunization records – before being permitted to ship out. She had requested that the crew bring her hard copies of their files, something of an unusual request by most standards, in order to prolong those visits, those days – in order to prolong the time before she would only see them to watch them die or suffer. For many, this would be the first and last time she would see them alive. For many, the next time they would be brought down to see her, they would be unrecognizable were she to compare their faces against the smiling portrait dutifully inserted into the top right corner of every medical file. For now, they all were filled with the same nervous air of anticipation and excitement. It was far more pleasant to be around than what she would deal with normally.

Chakwas half-turned to check the clock against the far wall. Half an hour remained until the first of the check-in windows was set to open, and there was still much to do. It had become a habit of hers to skim through those files that had been sent ahead, and the Normandy's crew had proved surprisingly interesting – from the pilot's hereditary bone disease to a well-functioning L2 biotic. It would be among the more difficult crews she had managed medically, she had decided, but she was rather eager for challenge – for all that the premature study of those records had unintentionally set her back several hours in her preparations.

She was still deep in thought when she half-heard the doors to the medical bay hiss open. Had the time gone by so quickly? The doctor glanced again at the clock, a worried frown settling across her face. Whoever had just entered would simply have to return once things were more in order. "We're not ready yet," Chakwas called briskly, resuming her final check of the sheets on the last bunk. "Check-ins will start in about half an hour."

"Anderson said I should come now."

Chakwas scowled, eyes settling on the stack of file boxes that had not yet been organized. Her record-keeping was an anathema to the digital age. Against the wishes of her supervisors, she worked with paper, jotting handwritten notes onto medical files instead of tap, tap, tapping away at a datapad like they had wanted her to do. She had always felt that something as personal as life and death should not be reduced to digitized blips and bleeps. There was no entry on the Alliance's standard treatment form for what a soldier's hands felt like as they clenched hers, as death slowly relaxed their grip until she was once again released.

"Anderson said I should come now," the intruder repeated.

"Well," Chakwas snapped, "he should not have. Check-ins will start in less than half an hour now, and I have a lot to do before then."

"Oh. I'll wait then. Can I sit here?" The voice was small and light with a melodic sing-song innocence that forced Chakwas to finally turn to face its owner. And its owner, a woman, stood just inside the doorway to the medical bay, barely five foot tall, if that. Dark messy curls spilt from her crown to just past her shoulders, obscuring most of her face except for large violet eyes framed by thick, dark lashes, and full lips painted with bright red lipstick. Her skin was impossibly pale, the color of the fine bone china Chakwas' grandmother would proudly use whenever important guests had come to dinner.

"Support personnel aren't supposed to check-in until 1500," Chakwas replied, still studying the small – woman? Girl? The doctor's eyes narrowed. The breathing porcelain doll before her couldn't be a day over eighteen. The doctor had guessed her occupation – something as small and fragile as she appeared to be certainly was not the type to go into combat. Chakwas imagined the girl fresh-shipped into the Citadel by some well-meaning country mother who had hoped her innocent, porcelain doll daughter would snare a dashing young marine at first sight. Well-meaning country mothers had always underestimated what they were sending their innocent, porcelain doll daughters into.

"I'm a marine," the girl breathed in reply, already easing herself onto the medical bay bed whose sheets Chakwas had just expertly straightened.

Sighing, the doctor eased away, slowly stepping towards the yet-to-be-organized file boxes. "You can leave me your paperwork, since you're already here. If there's an issue, I'll call you back. Okay? No need to wait."

"I don't have any paperwork."

Chakwas turned and faced the girl again, her mouth tight with frustration. _She must be fresh out of basic training. How did she make it through basic training? _

"They didn't tell you about the paperwork?" the doctor asked, knowing full well the girl would have been told of the necessary paperwork when getting her assignment.

"No, they told me," the girl replied evenly. "I didn't get it."

Chakwas placed a balled fist on her hip, leaning against her desk with her free hand. "Well, we're still in port, so you'll have to go get it," she barked. "I don't have time to do a full physical on check-in day."

"That's why Anderson told me to come now."

Anderson should have given the doctor advance notice that someone was coming, or, more properly, should have sent the child away at the first admission of being unprepared. Chakwas snorted, slowly picking up her clipboard. Check-in day was going to be less blissful than anticipated if Anderson believed he could spring surprise physicals on her all day. Still, a Captain's order was a Captain's order, check-in day or no.

"Fine," Chakwas hissed, unclipping the pen from where it rested at the top of her clipboard. "I'll need your name to access your files."

"Avery."

Chakwas waited in silence for a surname. The girl waited in silence, too, staring blankly at the far wall. It appeared no surname would be given.

The doctor bent over the clipboard, flipping through the attached pages until she came to the ship's manifest. Something seemed off about the girl, but still … She had said she was a marine. Flipping forward a few pages, Chakwas tapped her pen lightly over those with first names that started with an 'A.' Adam. Andrew. Allison. No.

The girl had spoken her name in a strange manner, her tongue blurring the letters so it had almost become 'aviary' – almost as if she had never heard her own name pronounced before. But here it was: Avery.

_Avery_.

Chakwas froze, her pen rolling down limp fingertips to clatter on the floor. "Avery? You're Commander _Avery Shepard_ – the XO? The one they call The Raven?"

Slowly, the girl – _woman_ –, pushed back the mess of dark ringlets covering her forehead, revealing more of that famed alabaster skin. "Yes, that's right," she replied simply. "Did you find me?"


	2. The Scholar

**Nihlus Kyrik** fancied himself an amateur scholar of humanity.

A soldier known and celebrated for the uncanny ability to exploit and acknowledge an enemy's weakness, he had made it something of a project to study the burgeoning species. He had read and memorized several of their most celebrated works, finding in the tales of heroes past some glimmer of the promise of the future, of what made the human race so fascinating to the Council. They appeared small and soft, fleshy, but from what he knew of their warriors, they were not to be underestimated.

However, the specimen standing idly before him appeared softer than most.

_She's not what you would expect her to be_, Anderson had warned him but a few hours earlier.

_No_, he agreed silently, sizing up the creature. _She is not_.

Nihlus had been granted access to Shepard's personnel file the night before he was set to board the Normandy, and he had devoured it – each word and paragraph, each outlandish deed – as if it were one of the fables of man he had taken to reading months earlier. Like he, she had been abandoned at a young age; though his path took him straight to the military, Shepard had spent her time amongst the tough street gangs of earth, eventually (by choice or punishment it was yet unclear) enlisting in the human Alliance shortly after turning eighteen.

His subject of study stepped forward slowly, her fingers digging into the massive bun at the base of her neck, trying to shove her hair back into place. _She is preening before her Captain arrives_, he noted with mild approval. _She seems to have some_ _respect for protocol, at least._

The woman was small, even by their females' standard, boasting a dark, thick mane that strained against the clips designed to hold it in place. He observed, with some amusement, that she had chosen to adorn herself with paint, much in the way that members of his species would decorate their faces with the ornamental tattoos of their home colonies. Her mandibles – _no,_ _what is it that were they called? _– _lips_ had been stained a bright crimson, perhaps, he mused, to remind those unimpressed by her size of the blood of enemies she had gladly spilled.

Humans, he had learned, came in a variety of colors as well as sizes; this one, however, appeared to be colorless save for the paint on her mouth. Under the harsh lights of the briefing room, she appeared to glow yellow. He knew of animals on Earth that had been born without pigment – albinos, they were called – but he was not certain what to make of her dark hair and striking violet stare. Her cheekbones, high and prominent, sharp chin, and smallish, pointed nose gave her face an angular, though not unpleasing shape. There was something decidedly bird-like about this one the humans called The Raven, and not only in name.

He had read of that too. She had earned her nickname, The Raven, after thresher maws attacked and killed her entire unit on Akuze. The sole survivor, legend had it that Shepard had come careening over a sand dune, screaming wildly, and slammed the butt of her sniper rifle into a maw's back to distract it from killing a hapless patrol sent to check on her radio-silent unit. With long, untamed dark curls whipping wildly in the wind, the patrol had radioed back that it was like watching an angry raven flying forth from its nest, screeching with the fury of a thousand voices.

He had fancied for a moment that this Avery Shepard would be something of a kindred spirit; but beholding her now … there was nothing kindred about the being standing before him.

Nihlus doubted the fragile-looking creature could heft a full sniper rifle, let alone jam it into the back of an angry maw.

Still, he decided to reserve judgment – for now. He would have time to work with her in the field, to see if she possessed within that tiny frame the fire and mettle necessary to succeed where countless others had failed.

"Good," he spoke at long last, the tiniest hints of a turian smile perking the corners of his mandibles. "I was hoping you'd arrive first."


	3. Rumors and Reputations

**Corporal Jenkins **slowly leaned towards the man next to him. "They say the camera adds ten pounds," he whispered, a broad smirk settling across his face catching Kaidan Alenko's eye. "I didn't realize it would also add ten inches."

The Lieutenant frowned in reply, adjusting his helmet under his arm. "Add ten inches to _what_? Corporal, if you're–"

"No._ No_!" Jenkins interjected as he bit his lip to keep from laughing. "Dirty mind, sir ... although now I'm kinda curious. _But_, I meant that it added ten inches to the _Commander_. She didn't look like a midget in those holovids."

Alenko frowned. He'd almost rather talk about the former than gossip about his new superior. Though, it was true, and hard to ignore: the Commander cut a far less impressive figure in person than one might expect, given the reputation that preceded her.

"Oh, come on," Jenkins pleaded at Kaidan's silence, his eyes twinkling. "You've heard the stories, right?"

"I have. It's hard to imagine her hitting a maw with a sniper rifle," the Lieutenant admitted.

"No!" Jenkins rebuffed, suddenly lowering his voice to add, "I meant the _real _stories."

Kaidan cast the Corporal a sidelong glare, shaking his head quickly. Of all the times to trade tales!

"Well…" The Corporal drew a long breath, determined to proceed despite Kaidan's warning. "I heard from someone in Alliance command that she holed up in a makeshift bunker for a month with two other soldiers. They were running low on water rations, so she killed other guys and ate their corpses to survive."

Alenko sighed, running his free hand through his hair. "That's stupid."

Jenkins wheeled to face him, excitement coloring his cheeks. "No, it's not! That's why she's so pale! The Alliance needed something to cover it up – I mean, they sent the unit into a maw's nest and then she resorted to cannibalism to survive … not the kind of thing you want broadcast when we're trying to cozy up to the Council, right? – so they promoted her, made her an N7, and gave her some fancy nickname to parade around. _The Raven? Please. _Half of the marines I know don't even know what a raven is. But the civvies eat that stuff up, you know."

The Lieutenant shuffled uncomfortably. Like many others, he had his doubts about the veracity of the official version of events surrounding their Commander's recent rise to fame; were he to guess, he'd peg the truth to be something between the tales they all had been told and what Jenkins had just less-than-eloquently stated. However, Kaidan Alenko was not the kind to engage in idle gossip and speculate as to his Commander's credentials. She was the Commander, and that was enough for him.

The object of their conversation turned towards them, bright violet eyes studying the two men absently. _Could she hear us? _Alenko wondered in a momentary panic. He pushed the thought aside, standing a little straighter. If she had, she would have enough on her hands with Jenkins than to worry herself with his accusation about the sniper rifle.

The Commander began a slow walk toward them, placing each step deliberately, one foot in front of the other, as if she were walking an imaginary tightrope through the center of the room.

"The suit's too big for her," Jenkins whispered, shuffling closer to the Lieutenant. "I don't think she can walk."

Alenko scowled, ready to issue the Corporal a reprimand, when he realized that Jenkins was right. The woman sloshed forward and backward clumsily, and as she moved closer, Kaidan realized that each arm and leg joint was missing one panel, as if something had been hurriedly crafted together to fit in a pinch. Instead of the standard woman's armor with custom-fit breastplate, she wore a man's chest piece, and with her helmet in her hands, the Lieutenant saw that there was a gap in the neck hole large enough for him to probably squeeze his arm through.

"You okay, Commander?" he asked as she neared them, the corners of his eyes wrinkling slightly in concern. Jenkins, still close beside him, twitched with suppressed laughter, his shoulder quivering.

"Fine," she replied evenly without looking up. She was intently studying her feet as she picked her way closer to the pair.

Kaidan drew a deep breath, shifting the grip on his helmet as he contemplated the wisdom of what he was about to say. "Your armor doesn't fit, ma'am."

Shepard stopped abruptly, her head tilted quizzically as if she had just noticed the soldiers in front of her for the first time. "It never does, Lieutenant - Alenko, right?" she offered breezily, her shoulders jostling the too-large armor with something that might have been a shrug. "I get it custom made. It was not ready today, so I put this together."

Her voice was higher pitched than he would have expected, with an airy quality that made even the most matter-of-fact statements seem strangely delicate. And he wondered how she knew who he was, though, for some reason, he was not inclined to ask.

Jenkins straightened instinctively. "Ma'am!"

She turned her head, casting the distinctive purple gaze in the Corporal's direction. "I do not know who you are. You are coming with me?"

"Corporal Jenkins, ma'am!" he barked.

"Okay. You are coming with me? You did not answer the question."

"We both are, ma'am," Kaidan replied.

She sounded so young and oddly melodic, like a songbird's breezy soliloquy on the world as it perched from a branch high above it – above everything, above it all, some detached and displaced commenter. She stressed the wrong syllables of words when she spoke, her tongue fumbling together consonants and vowels – _ahsswer_, _co-miiiiing,_ _whhhhit_. It was unlike any accent he'd ever heard, like she was almost as clumsy with her language as she was in her too-large boots.

"Okay."

_Oh-thay._

"If the story's true, at least we'll get to see more combat. Can't imagine her being able to move quickly, anyway," Jenkins whispered, throwing a light elbow into Kaidan's side. The Lieutenant cast a worried glance at Shepard; though only a meter away, he somehow doubted that she paid enough attention to hear them – nor, if she had, did she care about what was said.

A small door on the side of the room whizzed open, and the three marines – even Shepard, Kaidan observed – straightened as the Captain and turian Spectre entered.

"You are coming with me?" Shepard inquired again, the strains of that odd voice floating across the room.

"No," Nihlus replied as he studied the three soldiers with a lingering pause before beginning to attach his helmet to his bodysuit. "I—I work faster on my own."

Though he confessed to be no expert in turian facial expressions, Kaidan sensed what meaning that long stare held. _He thinks he'll be held back by us_, the Lieutenant realized with a sigh. His eyes flickered towards the strange woman, still rocking slowly back-and-forth in her too-large suit. _He's probably right._

**

* * *

**

**Ashley Williams** was certain of one thing as she trotted through the open field, hopping over and dodging charred corpses as if she ran through some perverse obstacle course: she was going to be sick, and soon.

She stumbled forward through the rocky terrain, desperately searching for some brush, some rock – something, _anything_! – that she could hide behind as she succumbed to her body's indignity. She tried in vain to push the sights from her mind: the twisted limbs, the burnt and blistered bodies, the spurts of blood, the look on Nirali Bhatia's face as the machines grabbed her …

She had always let things get to her, as a child especially. She spent her evenings as a girl curling up on her father's lap, her arms loosely tucked around his neck, peering down her nose into the musty pages he loving caressed as he flipped them one after another. It would always make things better. Her father would dig his fingers deep to their knotted knuckles, pulling her hair away from her face, letting a thumb catch tears as they dribbled down her cheeks. _It'll be okay, Little Lee_, he would whisper to her, planting soft kisses on the small cheeks. '_And this too shall pass.'_

_Are you still so sure, Daddy?_

No one ever called her Lee again after he died. Some things never passed.

Ashley's stomach began to roll in earnest, bile creeping into her throat. Unable to resist any longer, she fumbled quickly with the latches of her helmet, barely removing it from her head and tossing it to the side before her body chose to rebel. She fell to her knees in the middle of the field as breakfast made its reappearance.

As she retched, she silently cursed herself for her usual routine of having a large morning meal. Her mother and father had long stressed the importance of a large breakfast to being the best way to start a day, and she had listened and obeyed, often choosing to use an out-sized portion of her daily meal rations on eggs, bacon, toast, potatoes, and a full glass of juice while her fellow soldiers would choose only one of the mess hall's options. There seemed to be wisdom in their approach now.

She struggled violently to be quiet, casting hurried glaces over her shoulder in between heaves to make sure no one had heard her. _What a way to die_, she thought as what she hoped what would be the final wave hit her. _Here lies Williams – shot dead in a pool of her own vomit. At least no one would be surprised._

Ashley leaned forward, sucking in the sour air in deep, hurried pants. It had stopped. Her fingers trembling, she plucked a canteen from a pocket on her thigh and rinsed her mouth and face, rinsed away the tears that had streamed down her cheeks through clenched shut eyes, seeping hot and salty through the corners of her mouth. She allowed herself slow and careful sips of the warm water, thankful as it soothed her raw throat. Rising, she paused and dumped the remainder of the canteen's contents over the pile of vomit.

_What a time for vanity_, she thought ruefully as she watched her sick wash away into the dust of what used to be a field. _You could have hidden in a shack somewhere, lived off of that water for days._

_No_, she corrected herself. _I'm not going to do what they'd expect me to. I _will not_ hide__._

She grabbed her helmet from where it lay, carefully wiping away the splashes of vomit in a patch of sparse grass. Taking one last breath, she re-affixed the helmet to her suit, pulling her assault rifle from where it had been holstered on her back.

_You're a soldier – act like it.  
__Where to now?_

* * *

**Kaidan Alenko** cast one last look over his shoulder at the motionless body of Corporal Jenkins before breaking into a trot. Jenkins had been wrong about many things it seemed, not the least of which, he noted with a sigh, being Shepard's speed in the too-large suit of armor. The small woman moved at an astonishingly quick pace, charging over burned bodies with no apparent regard for the fact that they had once been living beings – living _humans_: colonists, soldiers, scientists ... innocents. Kaidan chose instead to move around or over the bodies, forcing him to a jog to keep pace.

He had never lost a friend before. He hadn't even realized Jenkins was a friend until he was gone.

Ahead, Shepard pulled to a hard stop, ducking behind a large rock. She crouched low, her eyes locked on Alenko's through their helmets. She jerked her head to her left.

The Lieutenant stopped as well, his brows knitting. _Does she want me to go to the right? _he wondered, lifting the assault rifle that lay in his hands. As a Sentinel, he had not been trained on the weapon – nor, actually, had Shepard as an Infiltrator; still, the Commander had insisted on using that particular device, stating repeatedly, as he and Jenkins had started to reach for pistols, "No. Assault rifle."

A now-familiar hum met his ears as a group of combat drones turned the corner through the clearing, bearing down on them from the right. Shepard swung out into the open, firing wildly at the drones as they whirred overhead. Dashing forward, Kaidan dove behind the rock his Commander had just abandoned, peering out from behind cover to take measured shots at the moving targets. _This would be easier with a pistol_.

He kept a careful eye on Shepard, the instincts of his medic training kicking in. She was taking heavy fire, though she didn't move, didn't look for cover. Alenko would have wondered if Shepard had even noticed the drones firing on her were she not shooting at them. As one fell, he noticed that she wasn't a bad shot, though her carelessness left something to be desired in his books.

"Can you finish this?" she called over the din of gunfire and mechanics. "I want to see the beacon."

She took off through the clearing, moving at what he could only assume to be her usual clip as she marched over anything and everything in her way. Alenko drew a deep breath and raised a biotic barrier, drawing his pistol. _Shepard be damned_. With a marksman's efficiency, he whittled away at the drones' shields, ducking in and out of cover and tossing biotic throws until they were downed.

By now, Shepard could very well have reached the dig site. Shaking his head, Alenko resumed his trot, taking tiny leaps and zigs and zags around the charred bodies littering his path – and noting the outline of boot marks stamped into the burned flesh. _At least she left me something to follow_.

He was moving at what he deemed to be impressive speed, though judging from the stamped corpses lying in mangled poses before him, he had a ways yet to go. He kept jogging, past more shot down combat drones and more charred bodies before his breadcrumb trail of footprints appeared to end. Spying what appeared to be a storage locker that had been inelegantly forced open, he changed course, moving to the left through a large field.

The Commander crouched ahead, tucked away behind an outcropping of rock. She had removed her helmet at some point and she was, much to Kaidan's chagrin, attempting to force an assault rifle down the gaping hole left by her ill-fitting chest piece. Several long, dark strands of hair and been loosed by the helmet's removal and were whipping wildly in the wind. A long red mark dotted one pale cheek, sending Kaidan to run closer with a start. As he neared, he saw that it was the remnnats of her crimson lipstick, smudged and smeared up the side of her face, probably by the helmet's removal.

"Good," she stated blankly as the Lieutenant approached, one gloved hand groping through the sparse patches of grass for another rifle that lay beside her. "You take this one. Just put it somewhere."

Kaidan bent to retrieve the rifle as commanded, wondering _where _exactly he was supposed to stow the extra piece of equipment. He opened the suit comparment where medigel was stored, quietly checking his Commander for wounds under lowered lashes.

"I am fine, Alenko."

He blinked. Had she caught him looking? Shepard's attention had never appeared to divert from her increasingly futile struggle with the assault rifle. Turning, Alenko began a struggle of his own, trying to jam the pistol he held into the medigel compartment. He quietly pressed the sequence on his old assault rifle to reduce it to omnigel and picked up the assault rifle from the grass beside the Commander, replacing the old one in its holster. Sudden movement ahead caught his attention. Alenko straightened, squinting slightly.

"Commander!" he barked in new and increased urgency. "There's a soldier up ahead – looks like she's being chased by ... by ... what is that?"

"I know," Shepard responded nonchalantly, now gripping the assault rifle by both hands as she tried to shove it down behind the breastplate. Scowling, she tossed it aside, lifting a pistol instead. "You might have to take that one too."

The Lieutenant stood in dumbfounded silence. _Would she even notice if I left?_ Casting one last look down at the Commander's dark head, he jogged forward. The soldier ahead fired on the advancing creatures in slow, measured bursts from a brandished assault rifle. _An assault rifle_, Alenko noted with a small frown. He drew his pistol, thankful to have it back in his hands. _Shepard would love her, whoever she is._


	4. Rescues and Rifles

**Ashley Williams **was certain of one thing as she sprinted through the open field: those synthetics were _fast_. There was some sound up ahead - voices? Radio chatter? Whatever it was, it was human, and right now, that was enough. Banking hard to the right, she slid and slipped across the hills, her motions jagged, her legs a blur. Her lungs burned, and as she neared the source of the noise, she saw two figures, one standing and one crouching. She forced herself to focus on their outlines. This was the goal. _You can get there._

She raced through the clearing, passing rocks and bodies, and, to her chagrin, a patch of dust and dirt and grass still stained with remnants of her own vomit. Had she run in a circle? No - the two shapes were still ahead, small and dull and blurry and far, _too far_!

Ashley dug into her body's reserves, tapping pockets of energy she had not previously known existed. This was adrenaline, this was her final push and surge before she would collapse and shut down and die, near where there had once been a pool of her own vomit.

This very terrain had been patrolled hundreds of times before. Eden Prime was considered something of a paradise, full of lush and fertile land that took to farming as if it had been designed for that very purpose. Had she been asked to describe the planet, she would have said it was green; she would never have mentioned its crags and valleys and frequent dusting of rock formations. It's funny what you don't notice until you need to use it. Today, and hereafter, she would say that Eden Prime was rocky.

Williams dove behind a small outcropping of rocks near where the humans rested. They'd have to see her. One, the standing man, straightened - he did. He pulled a weapon and began a jog towards her, calling back over his shoulder at the other. As the person neared, Ashley could see he was Alliance - the standard-issue armor gave that away - though he was not someone she recognized as being stationed on Eden Prime. An open pocket on his armor flapped as he ran - a medigel compartment. The man was a medic. She glanced towards where the other human figure still crouched, partially hidden behind some rocks. It appeared to also be a man, though long pieces of hair flew violently about in the winds. He must have been injured, must still be healing.

The medic approached, a pistol brandished in his hands. Ashley turned, firing short, controlled bursts with her assault rifle, a happy tingling spreading through her limbs as she heard a chorus of pistol shots melding with and mimicking her own fire. The man leaned his back against her rock, and their eyes met. They nodded at each other in the marine way, in that battlefield camaraderie that melted all barriers between people like nothing else. They didn't need words. They were soldiers, on the same side. It was a transcendent bond; it was her bond with the medic.

The synthetics twitched and sparked and whirred as an overload slammed through their systems. A burst of energy whizzed so close to the side of her helmet that Williams would swear she could somehow feel its breeze, and it sailed straight through the middle of the light on the closest machine's head. The glass, film, whatever it was, shattered and sent tiny particulates shimmering through the air, like the glittering after-effect of a firework still simmering in the night sky. The other man hadn't been injured, Williams realized: the other man had been a sniper.

_And all our yesterdays have lighted fools_  
_The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!_

Williams turned, casting an appreciative smile towards where the sniper still crouched low. He had begun moving, slowly and quietly, across the land between them. With a sudden scream - a feral, otherworldly yell that made her recall both the shrieks of birds and yowls of cats - he rose and began to charge towards them, his sniper rifle raised before his chest like a galloping knight would have brandished his lance. The Lieutenant caught sight of his companion and quickly ceased fire, motioning for Williams to stop as well. As the other man passed them, he bore down on the remaining synthetic, slamming the nose of his rifle through the creature's glass eye. The light went out.

_it is a tale_  
_Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,_  
_Signifying nothing._

"I thought I was going to die," Ashley breathed, her eyes wide. "Whoever you are, whatever you want, I'm buying once we get out of here!"

Both men ignored her.

The synthetic struggled beneath the sniper, and though the man appeared to be very small, he was also very strong. With exaggerated grunts and groans, the sniper kept slamming the butt of the sniper rifle through the machine's eye, sparks sputtering from now-exposed mechanics and cables, and the flaps that covered the side of what made its head quaking with each thrust.

The medic tore himself away from the scene, moving toward the synthetic nearest him. He nudged it with the toe of his boot, his eyes narrowing in curiosity. "What is this thing?"

"I think they're geth. Uhh, sir," Williams offered. She hadn't thought to check either man's chest plate for the rank insignia, though she could guess they'd probably outrank her. Her brown eyes flickered back to the sniper, still happily pulverizing the twitching machine beneath him. The sniper must have a lot of anger.

The medic cast a look over his shoulder at Williams, turning to face her. Now that his chest was exposed, her guess was confirmed: Lieutenant. "Geth? They haven't been seen out here in over 200 years." He paused, his eyes locking on the sniper, a strange expression twisting his features. "I- I think that's dead, ma'am."

_Ma'am?_

As the sniper rose, Williams could see that it was indeed a very small woman, too small, in fact, for standard issue armor to fit her properly. She dressed in a man's breastplate with - to Ashley's great amusement - the handle of a pistol barely peeking past its edge. _That can't be safe_, Williams thought to herself, barely contained laughter crinkling her eyes. _I guess that's why she was given a personal medic. _

The woman's hair, tussled by the wind, looked matted and tangled, causing Williams to run a hand over her helmet in an effort to check the security of her own bun. At one point, the woman had worn bright red lipstick that now had been smeared across her cheek. It was an odd choice to wear such a bold color. Most female marines took pains to keep the make-up to a minimum, almost as if they were afraid to do anything that made them be or look too female. Williams admired this strange woman's moxy; it would be nice to do or have something to make her feel feminine sometime, even if bold red lipstick were not her personal taste.

"Who are you?" the small woman spoke at last, deep violet eyes locking onto Williams'. The eyes were said to be the window to the soul, but Williams felt as if that pair could see through straight to hers.

"Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams of the 2-12, ma'am!" she barked. Ashley straightened, noticing an N7 insignia on the other woman's chest for the first time. _Could it be? Was this small and strange creature before her the subject of all those whispers, those tales ..._

The woman pointed to her chest. "Commander Shepard," she spoke delicately, taking her time to roll her tongue over the syllables as if the words were foreign to her somehow. She pointed next to the medic. "Lieutenant Alenko."

__

Me: Tarzan. Him: Alenko. Did she hit her head or something?

* * *

**Kaidan Alenko** winced at the awkward introduction, offering the Gunnery Chief a nod. She looked somewhat old for the rank, though, glancing sidelong at Shepard, he realized he'd become something of a novice at matching ranks to faces recently.

His eyes drifted to his hands, to where his fingers were still trembling. He prided himself on being fair and honest, and he had misjudged the Commander - assumed her to be some poster-child charlatan before he'd had a chance to see her in the field. Kaidan knew what it was to be misread; as a biotic, he'd encountered enough misinformation and prejudice to last him. Recalling that horrible screech, the waving bunches of hair warping and twisting in the wind, the hideous snarl etched across her face as she'd advanced on the synthetic ... It almost made him feel bad for the machine to have that be its last vision. _She would take on a maw single-handedly_, he decided. She acted as if she were not of this world.

_Maybe Spectres aren't supposed to be cut from the same cloth as the rest of us. Maybe they want her because she's different._

"Here," the Commander ordered in what was now becoming her familiar, distant tone. She shoved the extra assault rifle that Kaidan had left behind into the other woman's chest. "Put this somewhere."

Williams' hands gripped the thrust rifle awkwardly. Once Shepard had loosed her grasp, the Chief's fingers expertly began tracing the firing mechanism and muzzle. Having judged Commander Shepard's offering to be superior to her own, Williams skillfully stowed the rifle she had fired into the holster on her back, settling her hands upon the stock of the new rifle.

"We're here for the beacon," Kaidan offered, feeling awkward in the silence that had settled. "Where's the rest of your unit?"

Williams stilled her motions, lowering her head. "They're- I think they're all dead. It just happened _so fast_, and I ..." Her voice had been strong, though it trailed off. The truth had just begun to hit her.

"Yes," Shepard affirmed about nothing to no one. She absently ran a hand over her head, wiggling her fingers through the matted and tangled tresses still half-twisted into a regulation bun.

The Gunnery Chief's gaze shifted, her dark eyes studying the small woman standing to Alenko's side.

"You, uh... You wouldn't happen to know where the beacon is, would you?" The Lieutenant ventured, catching Williams' eye.

"Sure," she replied evenly, a momentary spark of curiosity playing across her face. "The dig site's over this hill. My unit wasn't assigned to guard it, so I don't know the details, but the damn thing was still sitting at the dig site last I saw it." She paused. "You're here for the beacon, huh? Do you think-"

The Chief stopped short, her head snapping to her right at the sound of a sharp thud, her rifle rising instinctively. Alenko followed suit, his pistol whipping upright, clasped firmly in two hands in front of his torso.

The Commander, the same Commander who had just stood next to them, was thumping the butt of her sniper rifle against an unopened storage chest a few paces from the two marines.

"How'd she get over there so fast? That armor doesn't even fit." The Chief slowly stepped to Kaidan's side, her fingers tapping nervously against the stock of her new rifle.

"It seems a little disrespectful, doesn't it?" Kaidan mused absently. "These corpses are still smoldering and she's already looting their stores."

Williams snorted, glancing sidelong at the Lieutenant. "It's practical, sir. What do they need the guns for when they're dead anyway?" She rocked back on her heels, her head nodding slightly. "You know, that's just how I imagined her - The Raven, I mean. Ruthless, practical, focused on the mission." The Chief looked down at Shepard's present still resting in her hands. "She doesn't know me from Adam, just sees that I'm Alliance, and she outfits me with better gear than what those bastards back at the base judged me worthy of. You're lucky to be serving with her."

He was unsure if it was luck or some sort of curse. He liked the simpleness of order, the complacency of routine. Nothing would be simple or routine with Shepard, he sensed; nothing would be the same again.

Kaidan chose to ignore most of what Williams had said. _She lost her unit today; she doesn't need to lose her hero too. _

"The Raven?" Alenko slipped his pistol back into its holster, folding his arms across his chest. "So you know the stories then?"

Williams let the assault rifle dangle to her side, assuming a similarly at-ease stance. "Yeah," she admitted with something of a forced casualness to her tone. "Who doesn't?" The Gunnery Chief stole a quick glance at the small woman still slamming the butt her of rifle into the storage chest. "She uses that thing like an extension of her arm. She's something."

_Yeah, she's something all right_._ I still don't know what - but __something__._

The lid to the storage chest swung open, and Shepard's upper body disappeared from sight as she leaned into the crate, sloshing through metal to find what she deemed valuable bounty. After a few minutes, she emerged, cradling a few more rifles, some ammunition packets, and a couple armor upgrades in her arms. Shepard jerked her head, causing both marines to start walking towards the Commander at the signal.

Ashley stopped short, hesitating. "What am I doing?"

"Chief?"

Alenko paused too, watching her closely.

She shook her head lightly. "What do I do? Do I follow you two? I just ..." She licked her lips. "I don't want you to feel obligated to take the Eden Prime orphan along just because I've got nowhere better to be. I am _not _going to be a burden." Williams nibbled on her bottom lip, as if hoping to tap into one last store of courage. "Listen," she began carefully. "I know I'm only a Gunnery Chief with crappy ground-side postings under my belt, but I can hold my own ..."

So, she wanted to come along. Kaidan supposed it made some sense, and she _had _impressed him with the quick and easy way she'd evaluated the assault rifle. The way her fingers had breezily glided over mechanisms demonstrated a knowledge of and passion for weaponry far greater than his own. She had proven herself a good shot, and she was smart and strong enough to survive where the rest of her unit had not.

"We had a third with us when we left," Alenko replied thoughtfully. "You can take Jenkins' place - for now. I think the Commander will like having you with us." _I don't think the Commander will notice you with us._ "Besides," he added, flashing her a small smile, "you can be our tour guide. Jenkins was from Eden Prime. Shepard and I don't know our way around."

Ashley began walking again. "Sorry about Jenkins."

Kaidan raised a brow. "Thanks ... Sorry about your unit."

She nodded. "Thanks."

Shepard dumped her bounty onto the turf before them, picking a few things for her own use from the pile and gesturing to the two marines to take what they wanted as well. Her shining eyes fell on Williams.

"You are coming with me?" she called in that strangely accented bird-voice.

"Yes, ma'am!" the Chief replied firmly, her small glance towards Kaidan belying her unease.

Shepard nodded, busying herself with the armor mod she had just found. "Okay."

_Oh-thay_.

Kaidan added quickly, "Chief Williams knows this land - she can lead us to the dig site."

The Commander snapped a medi-gel armor mod into place. Williams silently crouched beside the pile, picking up a few specialized rounds and a heavy weave mod for her own armor. Both women looked to the Lieutenant. He paused and followed suit, carefully choosing a few upgrades for his weapons.

Satisfied that her crew was outfitted, Shepard offered the pair another brusque nod and another small, distracted, "Okay." She took off across the hill, looking over her shoulder to make sure the other two marines were keeping pace. As before, she charged forward quickly and purposefully, forcing the two companions to start a light jog.

"Are you sure you need me?" Williams grumbled, gritting her teeth. "Shepard seems to know where she's going."

Kaidan quietly cursed. He'd let his medic training slide, hadn't thought of offering medigel to the Chief or checking her for wounds. As she ran, she appeared to favor one leg, and her breath seemed a bit ragged. She'd been running for her life when he'd first found her. Though she'd had some time to rest, it probably had not been enough. He slowed his pace, allowing the woman some reprieve.

"You're an extra gun on our side. Under these conditions, I'm never going to turn that down."

Williams smiled at him - a full, true smile without forced emotions or hidden undertones. It was a nice smile, he decided. It felt good to have a woman smile at him that way again.

* * *

A/N:

_And all our yesterdays have lighted fools_  
_The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!_

_it is a tale_  
_Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,_  
_Signifying nothing._

From Macbeth.

Thanks to everyone who's read this, especially to those who have added this to their story alerts and to the reviewers. Hope you enjoy reading this as much as I've enjoyed writing it.


	5. Seeking Eden

**Avery Shepard** had one object in sight: a storage shed, tucked against the side of a hilltop, surrounded by half-smashed crates. She was mildly aware of her shields protesting against something, a persistent and pervasive humming that was proving to be an irritation. There was a whirring and whistling in the distance, too, that drew on her patience now that she'd become attuned to it, and a grunting hissing growling gurgling noise from the zombie-like man creatures lurching towards her.

Oh, _enough_! She wheeled about, digging one hand into her hair as she was prone to do while she thought. The two marines that had been trailing her were already ducking and popping and springing back and forth and up and down from behind rocks, firing off little shots here and there at the bleeping, blooping annoyances in the spaceport below. She squinted, closing one eye, sighting the targets with an imaginary rifle. The machines weren't _that_ far. Those two soldiers should have been able to get rid of them by now.

She stopped, allowing herself one last, longing stare at the shed. It would still be there when she was done.

"Have to do everything myself," she whispered, pulling the sniper rifle out of the holster on her back. She swung it into position and knelt, peering down into the scope. The first of the targets, one of the groaning, staggering zombies, was sighted. Slowly, as if she were caressing a loved one, she swiped her finger across the trigger, sending a single shot barreling into the head of the intended mark. "Boom!" she breathed, smiling softly. The rifle shuddered and shivered in her hands, the air rippling as the shot made its way to its target. It was beautiful.

Before she had finished enjoying the sensation, she was lining up the next shot. "Boom!" she breathed again.

* * *

**Kaidan Alenko **pulled his legs into his chest, wrapping one arm loosely around his knees. The dig site had been empty save for a small force of geth. Nihlus had radioed ahead that he was moving towards the colony's spaceport, and Williams had agreed it was as good a place as any to resume their hunt for the beacon. More geth had met them as they arrived. After clearing out the synthetics in the spaceport below, Commander Shepard had decided it was time for some sort of mission _inter_mission and had taken to personally searching each of fifty or so storage crates that had been piled around a small shed. The other members of her team, Kaidan and Chief Williams, waited a few meters away - at first, guarding their Commander. Then, as the search for bounty had worn on, to sitting, uneasily enjoying a small break in the combat.

"I started my day right over there, right beyond that hill." Ashley Williams sat next to him, cross-legged, one outstretched finger pointing to some unknown and unnoticeable dot on the horizon, something of significance to her that was nothing, an unknown and unnoticeable dot, to anyone else. It was like that ugly green paisley pattern that Rahna had in that one dress, the one she always wore when she wanted to look mature and sophisticated, the one that made him think of her whenever he walked past a shop window and saw something similar, the one that made him want to wait and see if she'd stop too.

He realized that Williams was still talking, had been talking. "... eating my breakfast. Five hours ago! Isn't it so weird how you can work at something for months, build up some kind of a life, and then it can all fall apart in just _five hours_? Hell, five minutes! I was with them on patrol, egging this one guy on about how he couldn't manage to ever shine his boots right. Next thing I know his head's blown off. Just five minutes and your whole world changes, just five minutes and everything ends." It was too easy to think of BAaT having already thought of Rahna. "Just five minutes and the people - _your people! _- are all around you in bits and pieces with big bloody holes. And you think of their families and their faces and of all those people that had entrusted their lives to you just because you had the dumb luck to wear the shirt with the extra little bar on it. Yeah, it ... it all started right over there."

Ashley cleared her throat, picking at the small patch of grass beside her. "So, Shepard really likes looting those containers, huh?" Williams jerked her head towards the Commander, apparently eager to change the subject. "She always like this?"

"Couldn't tell you, Chief," Kaidan replied honestly, giving the woman a one-shouldered shrug. He wondered if he should say something about what she had just said, reassure her somehow that her work was meaningful and the lives of her unit wouldn't be forgotten. But Kaidan had no words for that. "This ... Well, this was _supposed_ to be our shakedown cruise."

Williams licked her lips, pursing them together to make a low whistle. "Some cruise."

"It was shaping up to be odd long before we got the distress call," Alenko admitted. "We've got a turian on-board - rumor is, to evaluate Shepard for inclusion in the Spectres."

Williams whistled again, shifting to stretch her legs out in front of her. "If that's true, it's huge. The first human Spectre, and they're going to choose a woman?" She twisted to face Alenko, her eyes sparkling. "Bless her heart, Shepard's a little eccentric, but she's been able to accomplish things most women in the military never could. That rank, that N7 designation. She's opening doors for all of us as it is - but to be the first Spectre? That's ... that's incredible."

Alenko squinted, his forehead wrinkling. The first twinges of a migraine had begun their assault, dully knocking at the sides of his head. He removed his helmet, raising a gloved hand to rub small circles on his right temple, his head tilted slightly towards Williams. "I hadn't thought of it that way."

The Chief snorted. "Of course not, L-T. You're a man." _'L-T,' eh? So, she's given me a nickname._

"Though ... 'a little eccentric,' Chief? My last Captain used to quote from the _Rime of the Ancient Mariner_ every time we were in the airlock - _that_was eccentric." Kaidan allowed his eyes to close. The hot midday sun bore down on them from overhead, and though he normally would have complained about the rising temperature within his suit and beads of sweat beginning to form on the back of his neck, something about the heat that felt soothing to his sore muscles.

"_Okay_, L-T," Williams relented with a sigh. "Shepard seems a little weird. Not _bad_, weird, though - and I'm glad she's on our side with a shot like that." She paused before adding, "And there's nothing wrong with reciting poetry."

Alenko chuckled and cracked open one eye, surprised to find a pair of dark brown ones staring intently back into his.

"Oh! Uh ... sorry."

He raised a brow. "Need something, Chief?"

Williams folded her legs beneath her, pivoting so she bore her weight on one arm, facing him directly. "Is that some sort of biotic thing you're doing? Are you, like, recharging your energy from the sun?"

That was a new one.

He'd come to appreciate Williams' irreverence and humor in the short hours they'd been together - something about her reminded him of Jenkins, and it seemed fitting to treat her as Kaidan would have treated him. Alenko paused, wondering if the Chief was attempting a joke or some comment on his pose. But something about the eagerness in her voice and earnest curiosity she wore convinced him otherwise. How many biotics would someone relegated to a string of ground-side posts come across?

"No, Chief," he replied gently, stifling his urge to laugh at the question. He forced his voice to be even - no sense in upsetting the woman further after the day she'd already had. "I'm not solar-powered like some -"

"Wille...enko!"

The strange shout sent both marines scrambling to their feet, quickly gathering their gear.

"Do you think that was a call to formation?" Williams asked as she handed Alenko his helmet.

He began snapping it into place. "Let's go find out."

* * *

**Avery Shepard **frowned as she watched her two marines amble across the slanted hillside. Williams and Alenko, though admittedly marginally helpful in combat, were _so slow._ It had begun to try her patience, and it didn't help speed them along any that they seem more concerned with idle chatter than with her call. She felt an unexpected twinge of jealousy as a bright peal of laughter floated across the open space between them. Shepard had never been able to walk and chat and laugh like that - and by the time she was finally able to, it was too late for her to learn. She set her jaw and turned her back to them, as if not seeing them would be able to take that sound away. It didn't.

* * *

**Ashley Williams **grinned. "Alliance runs in my family too."

"Really?" Kaidan asked, tilting his head slightly. "Is that why you enlisted?"

Things had been going _so_ well up until that point. Ashley had learned not to open up to strangers too quickly, but there had been something about the Lieutenant that proved disarming, a variety of kindness and gentleness that shone through when he spoke.

"Something like that," she replied with a shrug. "Is that why _you _enlisted?" she countered.

"Something like that," Kaidan parried back, a small grin spreading across his lips.

She silently prayed he'd drop the line of questioning. She wasn't going to get into her grandfather's service record now - not before she got off that god-forsaken planet. _If _she got off that god-forsaken planet.  
Shepard and the Lieutenant couldn't just leave her there ... _Could they_?

"I enlisted after my brother died."

Shepard stood with her back to them, a pistol held at her side. Ashley paused, unsure of how to answer the Commander's unsolicited response.  
Kaidan did it for her: "Sorry to hear about your brother, ma'am."

"Rodger" - it was the first word she had spoken without that strange way of pronouncing things - "tried to take care of me." Shepard looked over her shoulder, her eyes searing into the Lieutenant. "He tried like you do. He was all I had. He was ... everything."

Tightness gripped Ashley's throat. The Commander had lost her family. Would Ashley become strange and detached like Shepard if she lost her sisters? Would Abby and Lynn and Sarah become so lost, so distant if they lost her? They had almost lost her earlier. Staring down at the mechanical corpses littering the bay of the spaceport, she realized they could lose her yet.

The Commander looked away and fired several quick shots into the door control panel of the storage shed. "I cannot get this open," she sighed, her nose wrinkling. "I would like it open."

The Lieutenant knelt by the indicated panel, scowling. "Shooting at it like that isn't going to do much aside from fry the wiring, ma'am," he muttered. "Let me have a minute."

The door to the storage shed hissed open, revealing several farmers staring wide-eyed back at them.

"Hi," Shepard stated plainly, the evenness of her tone contrasting with the vaguely threatening motion of the pistol she was waving at them. "What do you know? And, what do you have in there?"

* * *

**Avery Shepard **knelt beside the immobile turian lying on the spaceport's floor, lightly tracing a seeping wound in his head. She sighed and ran her other hand over his eyes, shutting their scaley lids for a final time. She had felt an affection for the skeleton man with the paint on his face, for his direct manner, for the rumbled, tinny way in which he spoke that sent tiny vibrations tingling through her fingers.

Nihlus deserved a better death than this one.

"Is that your turian?" the Chief asked from somewhere behind her.  
"Yes," Kaidan replied, his voice heavy. "He was."

* * *

**Kaidan Alenko** knelt, his hands hovering over the object in front of him, fingers twitching slightly. Shepard made it seem so nonchalant, so easy. _Oh, there's a bomb - _like the way someone would just casually comment_ look, that's a tree_, or _huh, tall building_. Williams stood a few feet away, wincing, her arms wrapped tightly around her chest like they could serve as some sort of blast shield.

He pulled up his omni-tool, studying the schematics of the explosive. It wasn't a particularly complicated or sophisticated device, designed more as a nuisance to slow them down, he guessed, than to actually kill them. He swiped his finger across the orange screen a few times, swapping circuits and overwriting pathways. _That should do it_.

Alenko looked down at the device. He was _sure_ it had been neutralized, though the countdown clock kept ticking. 2 minutes, 15 seconds left.

Shepard cupped a hand over her eyes, her other arm rising to point at something on a platform on the other side of the spaceport. "Oh, there's a bomb there too."

_Look, that's a lake. Wow, nice haircut. Hey, here's a cat. _

_

* * *

_

**Ashley Williams** stooped over the Lieutenant's motionless body, looping her arms under his and dragging him away from the sickly green light emanating from the beacon that held the Commander trapped in stasis. She moved around to his front, bending over to lightly pat his now-exposed cheek. His helmet had flown off into the distance somewhere with the force of Shepard's tackle.

"Hey, L-T. _L-T_! Wake up!"

Alenko's eyes fluttered open.

"She knocked me down," he gasped. "What did I do? She knocked me down!"

"No," Williams corrected, her voice very small. "She knocked you out of the way."

Alenko struggled to sit up. "Out of the way of what?"

Ashley shifted again, moving to brace him from behind and help pull him upright. She motioned with her head towards the strange scene before them. "Out of the way of _that_." He squinted, no doubt wondering just how hard Shepard had hit him.

"The beacon just started doing that when you got near it," Williams whispered. "And then it just picked her up, left her like that."

He pressed his lips into a thin line. "Think it's some kind of weapon?"

"I don't know," she replied honestly, her voice quaking. "I don't know what it is."

Alenko rose, his hand outstretched towards the Commander's static frame.

"No, don't touch her!" Williams shouted on impulse, tugging at the Lieutenant's arm. "It's too dangerous!"

The beam began to sputter, and the beacon - the object of their quest - popped, slowly cracked, and shattered, like that light was the last thing that it had to give and there was nothing left for it to live for anymore. The Commander's body was slowly released, drifting down down down like a leaf caught in some wispy autumn breeze.

The Lieutenant stared dumbfounded.

Sensing that something needed to be done, Williams slowly crept forward, gently reaching a hand in front of the Commander's mouth, feeling for the little pants that would let her know life still existed in those lungs.

"She's breathing!" the Chief called after a minute. "We should get her back to the ship."

Alenko appeared at her left, and knelt, cautiously scooping the limp body into his arms. Her limbs drooped and jangled with his motion, her head rolling slack on her neck, like she was some sort of little human doll. "At least she isn't heavy," Kaidan sighed, slowly rising from his knees. "I'll have to radio ahead, let them know what happened, let them know where to meet us."

_Us!_

It wasn't the right moment to be happy or excited. Ashley forced her expression to remain calm as the Lieutenant radioed the Normandy, mentioned her by name, as if it were some sort of a given that she'd be taken too.

"Have the Chief recover what she can of ... whatever's left of the beacon. Can you two get to the field to the southeast? Jeff, bring us down there."

Alenko nodded absently, drawing a deep breath. "Yes, sir. It's not too far. We passed it on the way in."

"Good. I'll meet you two on-board. Anderson out."

_The Normandy, the most advanced ship in the whole Alliance Navy, the most strange and storied Commander, the most respected and celebrated Captain - and you're going too. Six hours ago, you were plotting your escape from Eden. Six hours ago, you were just another ground-side grunt. _

_Six hours is all it takes for the whole world to change. _

_I hope it's changed for the better._


	6. Where Silence Has Lease

**Avery Shepard** was waking up.

There was a moment when she first awakened when her brain engaged, clicked into gear, and there was a sudden awareness – of hands and feet, of ears and noses, of lips and eyes. She slowly moved through some innate checklist of sensory experience, marking off those items necessary to make sense of her surroundings.

She was lying down.

Her hands were bare.

She spread her fingers, letting them slide across the surface beneath her. It was soft, and upholstered, though - her fingers poked and prodded, tapping in waves - yes, though not overly cushy. She flexed her feet, letting them roll on her ankles. The surface continued the length of her body. It was not designed for comfort.

Her lungs demanded attention next, and she relented, taking deeps breaths until they were satisfied and full. The air was slightly sour, though not with the sourness of death. It was a different taste, almost stale. She let her mouth hang open, let the taste roll around on her tongue. It didn't feel like real air, like it was too still and too carefully scrubbed of flavor and texture to be real.

Her nose twitched with the scent of something chemical and sterile.

Clean.

The air, the room, the bed - it all felt _so_ _clean_.

She must be back aboard the Normandy - from the smell and feel of it, probably in the med bay.

There were no memories of the return to the ship. Shepard traced through the timeline as she recalled it: the drop point; the Corporal's death; finding that soldier; their search for the beacon; the small army of machines overrunning the colony; her dead turian, said to be shot by another one; the bombs in the spaceport; more of the strange machines; finding the beacon ...

It was like a thousand pictures had attacked her at once - frenzied fragments flashing in her head, of death, of panic, of fear, of ... something so terrifying and also so foreign. It was the stuff of nightmares, but there was no releasing the knot in her gut now that the images had left her, no realization that it had all been a dream and that everything was fine. It felt more direct, somehow more _real_ than that. There was no waking from that unrelenting feeling of dread.

Her eyes opened.

* * *

**Kaidan Alenko** turned from the Captain and doctor at the first sounds of stirring behind him. He had kept a quiet a vigil, diligently watching the Commander, his omni-tool flaring with read-outs of vital signs. He was burdened with guilt and confusion: he felt he should've known better, should've been more careful with the beacon, and he was intensely curious as to why Shepard had reacted the way she did. At times, as they'd moved across the planet surface, he'd felt that Shepard had only been mildly aware of his presence, even somewhat irritated by it. But what she had said about her brother, how Kaidan reminded her of him, then shoving him out of the beacon's way ... Nothing made sense.

Her eyes peeled open and met Kaidan's, that strange violet stare searing into him.

"Dr. Chakwas!" Alenko's head suddenly snapped upright.

"Yes, I see," Chakwas replied calmly. She walked closer to the bunk, edging past the Lieutenant, and picked up the Commander's medical file from where it rested on a small shelf next to the bed. "How are you feeling, Commander?"

Shepard blinked.

"You were knocked unconscious," the doctor tried to explain, a gentle smile crossing her face. "You've been out for fifteen hours. Don't try to rush things."

A jumble of grunts and half-words spilled from Shepard's stained lips in reply. She cleared her throat, her brows knitting.

Alenko felt his adrenaline rise. Something was wrong.

The Lieutenant shook his head furiously, fingers quickly running across the screen of his omni-tool. "I don't- I don't know what's wrong. Her vitals are all stable. Do you think the beacon could have done something to her? I can do a brain scan-"

Shepard made another sound, more resembling words this time: "Thooow. Thoooower."

He turned back towards the Commander, and she reached a small hand up to gently press against his mouth. "Thlooow." Her voice was light and thick in one, like her tongue had grown two sizes too big for her mouth. _Throw? I'm supposed to throw something?_

Captain Anderson stepped forward and gingerly took one of the tiny hands in his own, lightly pressing her fingers against his own lips. "The Commander wants you to slow down," he explained quietly. Shepard nodded. "And she's trying to understand, to feel you speak." Shepard nodded again. Her hand dropped from Alenko's face, and she turned to fix that unnerving purple stare on the Captain. "The Lieutenant doesn't know," he softly added to Shepard.

Alenko shifted his weight, growing suddenly uncomfortable. _Know what?_

The doctor flipped furiously through Shepard's chart, her face tightening into a scowl. "Something in the beacon must have interfered with your implant, Commander. We'll- I'll try to sort it out."

The Commander's gaze had never left Anderson's face. "The beacon interfered with your implant," the Captain repeated. "The doctor is trying to fix it."

_Implant?_ Kaidan had seen no signs of biotic powers, nor did the Commander's military class give any hint of her being one. _Implant for what?_

Shepard hummed lightly, clearing her throat and opening and closing her mouth a few times. "No. I like this better," she finally whispered, her voice becoming stronger and clearer than the Lieutenant had remembered hearing it before.

Anderson pulled the hand away from his mouth, gently tucking it back into its owner's side. "I know," he said slowly. "But it can't stay like this."

"I know," she replied, a touch of sadness in her voice.

* * *

**Avery Shepard **had spent so many years without it that she hadn't noticed its absence - not at first. She felt the muscles in her neck tensing and releasing, a rumble in her chest, a twinging vibration warbling across her lips, and she slowly became aware that she had been making noise though she had not been able to hear it.

And then it came to her, and she remembered who she was: the sounds of silence - the hush hush roar from things still trapped in her head, like she had tipped an empty sea shell and heard the dimly echoed ocean.

Her eyes focused on the Lieutenant standing next to her. His lips curled and pressed and pursed and smacked but they remained empty. Relying on the implant had made her lazy, and she'd always had trouble reading new people at first until she learned the way their mouths worked. She forced the muscles in her throat to contract, her limp tongue to make the practiced forms.

She hated hearing her own voice, the way it lilted and hung dumb on a clothesline and made things seem clumsy and strange and could never be as the same as the sounds the others made. But speaking again without hearing it was proving surprisingly problematic.

_There was a time that this was all you knew. Why don't you know it now?_

Slow, she needed him to slow down.

The Lieutenant didn't seem to understand, and she wondered what she would have thought had she been able to hear her own voice then. Her fingers reached forward, lightly covering his lips. _Slow_.

She began to remember how things worked. It felt like coming home, like falling into a favorite chair and letting your body sink deep deep deep into the cushions and envelop you, wrap you in their arms. It felt so comfortable, so cozy, so warm. She let the silence blanket her, wrapped it around her, pulled it over her shoulders and tucked it tight under her chin.

Anderson lifted her hand to his mouth and let his language flow through her in one graceful strand. He knew to do this. He had known her before the Alliance had forced her to be displaced.

The beacon ... something about the beacon had made the little piece of metal they forced into her skull stop working. And the Captain wouldn't be allowed to let her stay here for long, he'd have to bring her back to the other place once the doctor knew how.

_I like this better_.  
_I know_.

The hubris of majority demanded she be 'fixed,' to take away her defining bits and make her same as them, to force her into their world.

But her world had perks that theirs did not - like this one:  
She flipped the switch.  
She shut her eyes and everything else melted away.

* * *

**David Anderson** crossed through the man-made expanse of Arcturus Station, his eyes fixed on a small figure standing on the other side of the main level's arcade. As an Alliance officer, he'd had to deliver more than his share of unhappy messages, but this ...

He paused and looked at the datapad in his hands, at the message he'd read so many times over and over again since he and every Alliance officer of any note or standing had received it several months earlier.

_My name is Avery Shepard and I am deaf - though that is not what defines me. __I am a sole survivor, an officer of the Systems Alliance, a special forces marine with an N7 designation, and I am the top-ranked sniper in the Alliance navy. _

_My mother, like I, was born on the streets in the slums of Earth, and she did not have access to the prenatal care and in utero procedures that would have "fixed" me. I am glad she never did. T__he Alliance wants to "fix" me now - to install an aural implant that will allow me to hear - and they are requiring the surgery in order for me to receive my next posting._

_I appeal to you today to speak on my behalf to the Alliance command. I know that most of those who I write will not help and will agree that I am broken. But, I am not. _

_Some in Citadel space refer to me as 'The Raven.' It is a bird whose cry I have never heard, though I imagine it to be more beautiful and plaintive a song than could ever be sung._

_I hope that I will die without having heard it. I hope that you will help let me._

__

_

* * *

_

**Avery Shepard **grinned as the faint whiffs of a familiar musk met her nose, stale and sticky. "Anderson," she exclaimed as she turned, smiling up at the man as he approached.

He forced a chuckle. "Is there some reflection around here that I didn't see?"

"No," she replied, tapping a finger to her nose. "We all dress the same, in standard uniforms, but we all smell different. I'd tell you what you smell like, but I don't think you'd like it." The smile faded as she noted the creases in his brow, the tiny lines that appeared around his eyes and mouth. "The news is bad, isn't it?"

Anderson exhaled sharply, absently tapping the datapad against his fingers. "They're refusing to change the mandate. The surgery will be required if you want to have a future career with the Alliance."

"Funny how it wasn't required, how no one cared, until I gained attention. The Alliance doesn't want the world to know that their newest 'hero' is imperfect," she spat bitterly. "It's ironic, isn't it? They started accepting the 'disabled' to active service in the recruiting drives after the First Contact War. But they never really accepted us at all, did they?"

Anderson stepped forward, gripping her hard by the shoulder. "But you _don't have to do accept it __either. You do not have to do this_. This is just one option, Avery! I have friends, contacts. You can choose a different path."

Shepard's mouth twisted. "But, this is my path."

...

"Will you stay with me? I don't ... I don't have anyone else. I don't want to be alone. You've been _so kind_, but I ... I can't be alone right now." Shepard's voice quaked with fear, her fingers trembling against her will. It felt funny. She couldn't remember another time when her fingers had shook so, or when the vibrations of her voice had felt so strange and wiggly in her chest and throat, almost tickling her and choking her in one.

Anderson nodded, slowly easing into a chair by her bedside. "Are you ready for the doctors to activate the implant?"

She needed to feel something better before she was thrust forth into that other world, before she had to leave hers.

"Not yet," Shepard demurred as she slowly reached a hand to rest against Anderson's lips. "My brother taught me to talk by letting me feel his speech. Before I-" she paused, her violet eyes overbright. "Before I hear you, can I feel your words?"

* * *

**Admiral Steven Hackett **pushed a datapad across his desk to the man on the other side. "It's a pretty short list of Executive Officer candidates, Captain," he admitted, "but the Normandy's an exceptional posting."

Captain Anderson leaned forward, using one finger to scroll through the offered names. He paused, his finger lightly tapping one of those listed. "Shepard."

A chuckle tore from Hackett's chest. "There's been a lot of interest in our 'Raven' ever since Akuze." The Admiral sighed. "You should know she's-"

"Exceptional," Anderson interrupted. "Just like the Normandy."


	7. Sound and Feeling

**Dr. Chakwas **froze, her pen rolling down limp fingertips to clatter on the floor. "Avery? You're Commander Avery Shepard – the XO? The one they call The Raven?"

"Yes, that's right," the Commander replied simply. "Did you find me?"

She could tell it now: the deliberate way that Shepard spoke, thick and a little uncertain; the way her violet eyes still trained on the lips of whomever had been speaking – an old habit that had yet to be broken; the way she looked away, awkward, during lulls in conversations. Chakwas scolded herself angrily for not having noticed it before.

"Find you! Oh, I've spent the better part of two hours studying your file," the doctor confessed, an uncomfortable hotness flushing her face.

Shepard offered an apologetic half-smile. "People look at me differently when they find out. I thought you could just examine me-"

"Oh, of course, of course!" Chakwas interjected, giving the Commander a dismissive wave. "Think nothing of it. 'Check-up' is just half a phrase away from 'check-in.'" The doctor smiled, chuckling lightly as she quipped, "I don't look at you differently, do I?"

Shepard took a measured pause before responding. "You do not seem as angry as you did before."

The Commander's file still sat open on the doctor's desk; Chakwas had been studying it still during breaks in the preparation work. Though there were many medical curiosities on board, none matched the intellectual and medical appeal of Shepard's situation. She had been oddly compelled to the Commander's story from the time it had first been published in the _Alliance Medical Journal_; seeing the woman's name on the ship's manifest had given a purpose and credence to her study.

Chakwas rested a fist on the desk's surface, the other's fingers tucking under the corner of the Commander's file. "Let's see here ..." Her voice was laced with forced nonchalance. There was no sense in informing Shepard that she had been a object of intense curiosity. "I'd like to review your history with you before beginning the physical examination. Is that all right?"

"Okay," Shepard replied with a light shrug. The voice was light and bright, but its syllables were muddled.

The doctor cleared her throat, lightly running a finger down the page before her. "You were born on Earth in 2154 – a twin. Your mother and sister died during labor?" The doctor's mouth twisted involuntarily. To have a mother and her baby die in childbirth seemed something uncivilized and archaic, a problem of another era. She imagined a soot-streaked woman, barely but a child herself, scavenging for scraps and unable to care for the two lives growing in her increasingly swollen belly. The mother's malnutrition, probably coupled with drug and alcohol abuse, would have certainly contributed to the Commander's small size and likely to her birth defect. It all could have been avoided so easily with proper care and treatment. It should not have been a problem of this age.

"Yes, that's what Rodger said," the Commander affirmed evenly. Her violet eyes were still fixed on the far wall, her expression unreadable.

"Rodger … yes, an older brother. I see him listed here. No major medical issues during childhood seem to be mentioned. Is that correct?"

Shepard snorted. "Other than being born deaf?" The acid seeping through the small woman's voice could corrode metal.

The doctor cleared her throat again, her finger and eyes moving further down the page. "Enlisted at eighteen," she mumbled, stealing quick glances at the Commander as she read. "Nothing of note in the Alliance file - strong, healthy biometric parameters observed during the regular physicals..."

Shepard cracked her knuckles.

"A broken arm treated after the events at Akuze..."

Shepard sighed, feet swinging idly. The doctor noted with some amusement that the Commander's legs were too short for her feet to reach the floor.

"And the next-" Chakwas stopped short. Shepard turned her head, curiosity alighting her eyes.

The doctor slowly shut the file and stopped to sanitize her hands at a small station before she crossed the expanse between them in a few strong strides. "Well, there's no need to recount that. Your objections were clearly recorded in the file. I'm sure you wouldn't like to revisit it."

The Commander smiled, bowing her head slightly. "No, I would not," she breathed, pressing her lips together. "Thank you, Doctor."

Gently, Chakwas swept the woman's dark curls over one shoulder, her fingers expertly palpitating the skin around the raised implant imbedded behind the Commander's left ear. "Has it been giving you any trouble? Any pain or tenderness?"

"No," Shepard replied, flinching slightly as the doctor's cold hands began travel across the exposed, pale skin to prod the lymph nodes in her neck. "Well, one thing, but it seems silly."

"I once had a Corporal come to me worried that his 'unit' would fall off after having intercourse with an asari," Chakwas offered, her eyes twinkling. "I sincerely doubt, Commander, that anything you have to say is _silly_."

Shepard wrinkled her nose, craning her neck as the doctor continued her examination. "With the implant, words do not _sound _how they _feel_."

Chakwas paused, her attention returning to the small device inserted behind Shepard's ear. "It operates on the same technology as a biotic's implant, sending impulses directly to your brain for you to process. I supposed it could be ... not calibrated properly, or something of that ilk."

Shepard sighed, twisting to the face the doctor. "Can you calibrate an off switch?"

* * *

**Avery Shepard**'s eyes opened.

She had been aware of movement around her, tiny shudders and thuds of footsteps as people had come and gone. She dozed off and on in a restless sleep. The doctor's smell of sanitizer had drifted away, lingering longer than the Lieutenant's (though there was something about Kaidan's scent that was hard for her to peg, she recognized it as uniquely his). A familiar musk remained the entire time, stale and sticky, still present in the room. She pressed her palms against the bunk, pushing herself upright. Anderson was still there, somewhere ...

There was a rumbling behind her, and then something felt heavy on her shoulder. Shepard turned, her eyes meeting the Captain's. He moved to the side of the bed, leaning over her slightly, and her gaze drifted with his movement. He spoke slowly, her eyes parsing out the movements of his lips.

_He sent the others away. The Lieutenant is outside in the mess and the doctor is in her office, trying to see what's wrong with the implant. The beacon was destroyed._

"I had dreams, bad dreams, but it did not feel like dreams at all," she gasped. Shepard was aware of how that sounded – how bizarre a thing it was to say.

"The soldier from Eden Prime? How is she?" Shepard raised a hand to her chest, checking for the familiar reverberations that were her only indicator she had been speaking. "What about Wille-"

It looked like 'Williams,' and it sounded like will-yums; she didn't know how it was supposed to feel, not without practice.

Names, she had always been so bad with names. There was nothing more personal than that jumble of vowels and consonants, and a different stressing or arrangement could recall someone else entirely. She remembered the first time she had heard her name, her _own name _… and it was nothing like she would have thought, nothing how it should have felt. Shep-herd. Her lips pursed, _shh_; then tapped, _eppp_; and opened, just a faint breath, a little expulsion of air, _herrr_; and then her tongue tickled the roof of her mouth, _duh_.

It felt breathy and delicate; it sounded flat and stumpy.

* * *

**David Anderson** gently took the small hand in his, pressing two of her fingers to his lips. "Williams."

Shepard lifted her other hand to her own mouth. "Williams," she repeated.

He nodded. "Yes, that's it. She's been transferred aboard the Normandy."

Anderson released Shepard's hand, motioning to the datapad he had left on the small shelf next to her bunk. "Lieutenant Alenko wrote the briefing on Eden Prime. I need to know..." He paused, leaning forward, his face suddenly inches from Shepard's. "Is it true? Is it true the colonist said Nihlus had been shot by another turian?"

Shepard nodded, her brows knitting. "Saren," she stated slowly, her mouth carefully forming the unfamiliar syllables. "He said it was a turian named Saren."

Anderson leaned back with a sigh. "I know him. He's a Spectre. We ..." The Captain's voice faded, a frown crossing his face. There wasn't much use in discussing old grudges, not here or now. "Joker is waiting on my order to approach the Citadel. This is a matter for the Council now. The doctor offered that you could stay here until she can repair the implant, but I told her you would probably prefer-"

"Yes," Shepard interrupted, her violet eyes sharp. "I should go speak with Alenko and _Williams_."

Anderson bit back a laugh. "Now you're just showing off. You can tell Joker to bring us through the relay while you're up there."

Shepard grinned, sliding off of the bunk. "Yes, sir!" she barked, giving the Captain a stilted salute. It was something of a joke between them – Shepard had often mentioned she'd only survived boot camp by shouting acknowledgments and saluting whenever she couldn't make out what a superior officer had been saying. There were not many people with whom Shepard could or did share such stories or jokes; Anderson felt an odd privilege to be amongst them.

The Captain shook his head lightly with a sigh and handed the woman a folded stack of nonstandard standard-issue Alliance fatigues. "Size extra, extra small. Your armor is stored in the locker in the garage, along with the loot you managed to squirrel away. Yes, Alenko wrote about that in the report."

Color rose into the Commander's pale cheeks. "I do not think he likes me very much," she admitted quietly.

Anderson shrugged softly. "People are confused by you, Shepard. You don't behave like they do - you know that." He paused. "You'll be subject to more curiosity once they learn. I've put everyone under orders not to discuss the implant or your situation, but it's a small ship, and I'm not naive enough to think that lips will stay sealed. I don't want them to think you're bro-"

"I am _not broken_," she interrupted, her chin jutting forward stubbornly.

"I know," Anderson acknowledged with a sigh, "but this will complicate things. If the Alliance were to know that the implant had stopped working, they might ..." His voice trailed off. "Go talk to the crew and tell Joker to bring us through the relay when you're done. It will be helpful for them to see that their Commander is up and about."

"Yes, Captain," she replied in earnest as she took the offered fatigues and walked towards a screen on the other side of the medical bay to change. She paused and looked back over one shoulder, her eyes shining. "And ... thank you, Captain. Again. For everything. I do not know where I would be without your kindness, without you to lead."

_She looks so much like Cynthia. _

"Of course, Avery," he replied quietly. "Now, go and prove to the Chief that you know her name."

* * *

**Ashley Williams** cringed as the words poured from her lips. _Stupid, stupid, stupid!_

"Oh, _that _Shepard!" Joker gasped in mock-realization, swinging about in the pilot's chair to face the furiously blushing Gunnery Chief. "Yeah, we're old best friends – used to meet at the Alliance Cripples Club every Thursday. Best cheese dip in the whole galaxy."

"She had her foot in her mouth already – no need to jam it down her throat, Lieutenant Moreau," the Commander called icily from behind them. Both marines started, Ashley's shoulders snapping straighter. _Oh, hell._ "Besides," the Commander added breezily, "the guacamole was far better."

"Heeey, Commander," Joker muttered quickly. "Thought your super-sonic bat hearing was on the fritz."

Shepard snorted in reply. "It is, so keep that mouth where I can see it."

Ashley willed that she could disappear, just curl up into a tiny ball and roll somewhere, away from the small Commander's unnerving stare – one that she was certain was trained on her now. She hesitantly turned towards the small woman. _Yep_.

"Do not listen to him, Chief Williams. Joker and I have known each other for years," the Commander explained, casting a sidelong glare at the pilot. "Consider this his version of hazing, Chief Williams." The Commander's eyes crinkled with some sort of self-satisfaction that remained lost on everyone else in the room. "Chief Williams," Shepard repeated again, a strange chortle bubbling from her throat.

Standing flat-footed in the ship's cockpit, Ashley noted that Shepard's head barely came up to her shoulders.

"I still shouldn't have assumed you and Joker know each other because you're both-"

"But we do," the Commander interrupted, raising a slender brow.

Joker, his back now turned to her, shrugged. "What?"

"You talk a lot better than you did back on Eden Prime," Ashley breathed, cringing as the words spilled from her lips like a cup that had overrun with water. _Note to self: develop an internal censor._

A bright flush colored the Commander's cheeks, almost matching the deep shade of crimson the Chief was now turning. "I get overwhelmed," Shepard admitted sheepishly. "Your world is loud and ..."

"Good to see you up and about, Commander! How are you feeling?" Alenko interjected, quickly moving to stand next to Ashley. Both women traded a look of relief at the distraction.

Shepard greeted him with a nod. "Good to see you, Lieutenant." Another awkward pause filled the air. Ashley realized that she hadn't heard – or seen, rather – the question.

"We're heading to the Citadel?" the small woman ventured. Shepard cleared her throat and turned away. "Joker, bring us in. I am ... I am going to stand over here. I like the way it feels when we hit the relay." The Commander moved past the two marines, standing with her hands lightly planted on the ship's cockpit railing.

Hesitantly, Ashley crept to the Commander's side. Moments later, the Chief noted, Alenko did as well. The three adopted a similar pose, hands all clasping the cockpit railing, eyes all trained on the empty space outside.

"Feel that little start – the way the engines are chugging now? We are getting closer. And – yes! – feel that now, how the very walls of the ship are trembling? "

Ashley tightened her grip on the railing, her eyes closing. She did.


	8. Alien World

**Kaidan Alenko** kept his eyes trained on the Commander. He idly wondered how she had communicated with aliens before the implant had been installed. The asari, with their human-like features, were probably easy enough to manage; but he could tell from her slightly delayed reactions, and the way her violet stare kept flickering back to the Captain and human ambassador Udina, that the turian and salarian councilors were proving especially problematic.

_I wonder if they can sense something's off about her. It might be why they are delaying the matter of her Spectre candidacy._

Chief Williams stood at Shepard's other side, her eyes likewise fixed upon the small woman. He had not been the one to tell Ashley of the Commander's disability, though she had learned of it quickly through her own means, and it was all she had wanted to speak about since. The consummate older sibling, Williams had quickly made herself something of Shepard's aide, dutifully following the Commander around and "translating" for her when need be. He wondered what Shepard thought of the sudden attention. On Eden Prime, Williams had treated Shepard like a personal hero, an idol; now, the treatment was very different. Through conversations with the doctor, Kaidan had learned the implant was a recent development, and Shepard had survived Akuze and completed special forces training without it; he kept that knowledge forefront in his mind, endeavoring to treat the Commander no differently, not to let the new knowledge color his impressions of her. He was, however, self-aware enough to know that it already had: he had once disliked her and he did no longer.

The audience drew to a close, and Shepard turned, leaning against the railing separating the Council from the Petitioner's Stage. Anderson and Udina stood a few paces away facing her, and Kaidan and Williams fell in line at her sides. _Remember, she can't hear you. She can't tell if you're talking from this angle. Don't do anything to embarrass her._

"So, what now?" Shepard sighed, folding her arms across her chest.

"There's a human C-Sec officer named Harkin," Udina suggested. "He might have some information about Saren that could be helpful."

"Harkin was suspended," Anderson countered. "You might try speaking with Barla Von, an agent of the Shadow Broker." No sooner had he spoken the words than the Captain suddenly winced.

A dangerous smile crept across Udina's mouth. "Ah, yes. Barla Von – a _volus_, if memory serves. Correct, Captain? I've always _loved _the way those filters over their mouths light up when they talk and breathe." Udina was clearly enjoying the upper hand – a bit too much for Kaidan's liking.

Shepard stiffened abruptly. "We'll go see Barla Von. Thank you for the suggestion, _Captain_." With that, she turned and began a purposeful march towards the rapid transit station. Alenko and Williams followed, once again relegated to jogging to keep pace.

"How are we going to go talk to a volus?" Ashley hissed.

As if on cue, Shepard snapped, "You two will have to do the talking. Williams, you're going to play Commander Shepard. Alenko … just make sure the proper questions get asked. Got it?"

"That's a little unfair," Kaidan quipped. "If anyone should get to play Shepard, it should certainly be me as the more senior officer."

"Can't much picture you in a skirt, L-T," Williams retorted, her eyes twinkling.

Shepard waited a half-second before whispering, "Good."

* * *

**Ashley Williams** slammed a fist down on the desk in front of her, papers scattering with the movement. "I'm Commander Shepard, and I heard you had information on Saren," she hissed, her voice low and dangerous.

"Way to be subtle, Chief," Kaidan whispered, his gaze flickering towards small woman standing at the back corner of Barla Von's office.

The volus on the other side of the desk snorted, his eyes only briefly leaving the screen of the terminal in front of him. "You're not Shepard," he huffed, disdain filtering through the mask he wore.

Williams shifted her weight, eying the Lieutenant uneasily. "Yes, I am!" she insisted, her shoulders straightening.

The volus sighed, obviously irritated by the intrusion. "No, you're not."

The familiar chimes of a pistol being activated drew the three's attention. "Just tell them what they want to know," the real Commander Shepard spat, her violet eyes cold.

Barla Von paused thoughtfully, his gaze shifting to focus on the small woman leaning against the wall of his office. "A decoy. Clever, though it won't fool someone of my stature."

Ashley's mouth twisted. _This isn't going to be as easy as we thought._

* * *

**Avery Shepard **scowled. It seemed her idea of having Williams pretend to be her hadn't precisely worked as planned. _Am I really so famous?_ The very notion of strangers recognizing her... It seemed so bizarre. Not years or months earlier no one had wanted to acknowledge that they knew her, had treated her as something less-than-human. Now... what _was_ she now?

Shepard leaned forward on the lake's railing, bowing her head, allowing her hair to cover her face. There had been a time when things had seemed so easy, when her world – this world – had been all that she needed. But now … everything seemed designed as a taunt. Go interrogate the volus agent, the masked alien whose face is unreadable. Go and talk to the krogan as he tells you, another alien race without lips for you to read. Go and talk to the turians, salarians, hanar, elcor, quarians – whatever else –, all strange and foreign beings that you can't understand.

She was her size; she was small; she was being mocked.

_I am not broken. I am _not_ broken!_

She balled one hand into a fist. For the first time in her life, Shepard felt less-than-whole, less-than-human. And she detested it.

"I've been here a hundred times before," she whispered to no one, though acutely aware of the two marines watching her closely. "I've been here _a hundred times _before and it's never been like this!"

She snapped upright and wheeled about to face them, strands of hair still clinging to her mouth and cheeks, her face still partially obscured. "Alenko," she spat, her voice tight and strained. "Radio the doctor. I need an update on that implant."

* * *

**Urdnot Wrex **studied the two human females before him. Though he doubted their abilities, especially as the smaller one appeared to not be able to understand him, they _were_ heavily armed.

"We should go find Fist," he bellowed, awkwardly raising a hand, his digits clasped against his palm. "And the turian, Garrus Vakarian." He pointed with his other hand towards a group of turians standing off to their side.

Williams turned to face the Commander. "Umm, he was hired to assassinate a man named Fist. He's in Chora's Den, on the other side of the Wards. There's a quarian with information about Saren," she repeated sheepishly, lowering her voice under the watchful eyes of the krogan. "And he suggests we try to find Garrus, that turian from C-Sec who was assigned to investigate Saren."

Shepard grunted. "I gathered." She cast a withering stare towards the large krogran battlemaster. "Lovely hand gestures. Very helpful."

He shrugged.

"Commander," Williams added, lightly placing a hand on the woman's arm. "Want me to call the Normandy? See how the doctor and L-T are making out?"

The Commander frowned, shaking Williams' hand loose. "No. Let's just go … shoot things. I could use a break from all this _talking_."

The krogan battlemaster chuckled. "I like this human." _Maybe they'd prove useful after all._

* * *

**Ashley Williams **discreetly tapped the 'record' button on her omni-tool. There was something in the air, something in the way the Councilors stood – it all just felt epic. _Too bad the L-T's missing this_, she thought, checking to make sure her omni-tool was capturing the speech. _We're discrediting Saren and Shepard's being inducted into the Spectres. What a moment! _

At the very least, she could show him the recording later if he wanted to see it. And maybe Shepard would want to hear it too after she was fixed – it _was_ her moment after all.

A pang of sadness hit her. Shepard was there, of course, but she was also not. _This is what she's worked towards, the highest honor bestowed on any human by the Council to-date … and I wonder if she even fully knows what's happening._

Williams recalled the Commander's distant, aloof manner when they had first met – the way she seemed so strange and out-of-place.

_This is why_, she thought bitterly, her mouth twisting in a small frown. And she was overcome with pity.

* * *

**Avery Shepard** stomped through C-Sec Academy to the elevator to the docking bay, a chorus of thumps and thuds trembling through the floor behind her. At least the motley crew of aliens was keeping pace.

_All I need is a flute and I'd be the pied piper._ Two humans, a krogan, a turian, and a quarian … the corners of her mouth tugged into a reluctant grin. If only the Alliance photographers knew what sordid sort of photo-op they were missing: her new team would have been the stuff of diversity recruiting poster dreams.

"Everybody in," she commanded, using one hand to hold the door and the other to usher them in. It was a tight fit. There was a moment's hesitation where the elevator seemed to strain under the weight, almost protesting its task. Slowly, with a deliberate pace, it began to rise.

Shepard twisted slightly to perform a quick headcount. Williams, ever her constant shadow since the younger woman had learned of Shepard's disability, had crept into the corner of the elevator, as far away from the others as possible. _Might get claustrophobic_, Shepard noted, tucking away the information for later use. It was a welcome reprieve. As expected, as Anderson had warned her, the crew would treat her differently once they knew - and Williams certainly did, though Shepard could also acknolwedge that the Chief meant well by it. It was, however, no less of an annoyance - no less of a reminder of how the world at large would treat her if they knew ...

Diagonal to the Chief, the silent and hulking krogan battlemaster Wrex occupied nearly the entire right side of the car. The turian, Garrus, stood slightly off to his side, eyes trained on the floor of C-Sec rapidly disappearing from view as they rose. He did not wear the face paint of the other skeleton man, Nihlus, Shepard had known, nor was his voice as tingly, but he still intrigued her nonetheless. Tali, the quarian, stood facing Shepard, arms folded across her chest. The quarian's envirosuit mask had made her impossible to communicate with and had rendered her entirely unreadable; however, her posture seemed to suggest she was displeased. For all that Shepard was socially unaware and shy, she was sensitive to how others viewed her, amplified now - she admitted to herself reluctantly - by the implant's sudden decision to stop working. "I like your suit," the Commander ventured quietly, gently outstretching a finger to trace the delicate and intricate embroidery on the quarian's arms. "The pattern is very nice." Judging by the quarian's reaction, Shepard was suddenly glad she couldn't communicate with Tali better. The floor of the car quaked, a steady rumbling emanating from the right side of the elevator in what Shepard could only guess to be Wrex's laughter.

The doors to the elevator parted on the docking platform, revealing a maddening horde of media and well-wishers. Flashes filled the air, the ground humming with echoed noise of the din of the crowd. The pathway to the Normandy was overrun, though she spotted a small section of platform that had been roped off near Udina and Anderson. Wide-eyed, Shepard turned to face her new crew. Williams blanched, hands over her ears; Garrus appeared amused and slightly enthralled; Wrex was plainly irritated; Tali … was still facing Shepard, arms still crossed over her chest.

Later, to recall, Shepard had no idea why this had been her first impulse. She assumed it had something to do with the scary stories that Rodger had told her when she misbehaved, the ones about the mutated dinosaur who lived in the sewers and ate disobedient children who were cruel to their brothers. Standing there, helpless against the mob before her, Shepard's purple stare fell on the krogan in the corner. "Wrex?" she whispered her voice trembling. Grumbling something in reply, the krogan peeled himself away from the elevator's side, moving to stand protectively in front of Shepard's tiny frame. Tucked behind the lumbering krogan, she was entirely shielded from view.

"Well?" he growled to the clambering people before him, his hands clasping into fists. "Are you going to move out of the way or not?"

* * *

**Joker **paused as the doors to the airlock hissed open. "Heeey, Commander!" he called, not looking up from his station. "A package arrived while you were out."

Silence. _Right. She can't hear me._

The pilot frowned lightly. "Would it kill you to be the first to speak sometime?" he muttered, reaching forward a hand to gently push off from the Normandy's dashboard, his chair swiveling about to face the shore party. Past the edge of the headrest, Joker found himself staring into the armored scales of a krogan's belly. "What the-!" he shouted, recoiling in his chair, palms outstretched before him. He shrunk further into the chair. "Take whatever you want, the ship, me … just promise to be gentle."

A small hand appeared from behind the krogan's back as the Commander stepped into view. She paused, noting the absolute horror that had yet to leave the pilot's face. Jerking a thumb towards the herd of aliens behind her, Shepard offered sheepishly, "I made some new friends."

"Oh! 'Made some new friends' she says," Joker repeated, waving his arms wildly, "as she hides behind a krogan! Geez, Shepard. I think I just broke a leg."

"And took a crap in your pants," Ashley added as she moved forward, her eyes dancing with mischief.

Shepard's gaze flickered between pilot and Chief, a small frown crossing her lips as a new darkness played across her features. Her fingers were soon buried in the mass of hair untidily gathered at the nape of her neck. "Williams," she began, turning to face the woman, "will you give our new teammates here a tour?"

The Chief hesitated. "The _entire_ ship, ma'am?" she asked uneasily.

"You may skip the escape pods and emergency crawl spaces," Shepard replied, her voice distant and distracted.

Eyeing the krogan warily, Williams stepped to the front of the pack. "This is the cockpit. Next, we'll move through the CIC to the briefing room. No sudden movements – I haven't taken my gear off yet."

"She seems to love your new friends," the pilot mumbled, his eyes trailing the group as they dutifully followed Williams.

Shepard flopped into the co-pilot's chair, her head resting in her hands. "What do I do now? Do I talk to the crew – say something about what has happened?"

Joker swiveled a few more degrees to face her, gently poking her in the arm. As Shepard peered through her fingers, he grunted, "Stop asking rhetorical questions from my co-pilot seat."

"That was not rhetorical," she replied with a mock-huff. "Just because I could not see or hear the advice does _not_ mean it was not wanted."

Joker tapped a few buttons on the command console as Shepard's hands dropped from her face. "Comm link's open," he said evenly. "You just tap the blue button when you're ready to speak."

"Should I?" she whispered.

He thought back to Arcturus, to the first time he had met her: strong, confident, nearly as sharp-tongued but certainly quicker-witted than Chief Williams. _What have they done to you, Avery?_ A small frown tugged at his lips as he studied her. _You're not who you used to be. And I was so jealous that you could be "cured" … _It was the first time he'd thought of that since he'd learned of their shared posting, the first time he'd broken his promise not to become distracted by the past. But what was she doing sitting there, looking at him that way, needing his reassurance?

The pilot held her stare. "Listen, Shepard, I'm only gonna say this once, and you know my lips move fast, so try to keep up. I've known you long enough to know that you can be a little weird and a little stupid sometimes, so trust me when I tell you that you're being stupid. Anderson knows what he's doing. Yeah, that wasn't what he deserved, but it wouldn't have happened if it wasn't what we wanted. _You're_ the Captain now, so act like it." Grumbling, he added, "I'd offer you a shoulder to cry on, but you'd probably break it."

After a moment's pause, Shepard nodded quietly, slowly scooting forward in the chair. "The blue button, right?"

Joker's mouth twisted, his eyes searching. "I - Yeah. Yeah, it's just the blue button."


	9. Brave New

**Kaidan Alenko **remembered the first time he had disassembled something to see how it worked. He had not been more than five or six years old when he set upon a motorized toy that someone had purchased for him, inelegantly prying off the side panel to reveal a maze of wires and resistors, circuits and conductors somehow blending together to make the toy move. He had pried wires loose from where they were anchored, one by one, stopping and starting the toy each time to see what would happen. The mystery of electronics had proved a tantalizing puzzle for his young mind then, and, as he sat in the Normandy's medical bay studying the schematics of Shepard's implant, it was one that gripped him still.

"Dr. Chakwas!" he called, shifting on his stool so that she could have a view of the diagram. "I think I have this mapped."

The doctor slowly rose from her seat behind her desk, crossing the small medical bay in a few quick strides. "That was fast, Lieutenant," she mumbled as she leaned over the workstation, a brow inclining.

Kaidan shrugged lightly. "I did a fair amount of research into biotic implants when the L3s were announced. This-" he lifted a finger to point to back section of diagram - "is the same as in the biotic implants."

Chakwas' brows furrowed. "So, that's the part that communicates with the brain?"

He nodded. "Exactly. And this –" he pointed to another section – "is where it begins to differ. The biotic implant is designed to communicate with the biotic's nervous system. In Shepard's, it appears that this area is almost like a tiny microphone, functioning similarly to an eardrum. I think it picks up vibrations and transmits them through the implant into the brain to be deciphered."

"Excellent work," Chakwas murmured, her eyes narrowing slightly. "Have you reached any conclusions as to why the Commander's implant stopped functioning?"

Kaidan brought his attention back to the terminal, pulling up a recent scan of the Commander's head. "The imaging equipment on the Normandy isn't as detailed as I need it to be, but it looks like – for lack of a better way of saying this – like the beacon managed to turn the microphone off. See this here?" He traced his finger along the image of the front part of the implant. "It should move microscopically as it picks up sound, but, even in the most detailed magnifications, it doesn't. It would be easier to know for certain if I could speak with the device's engineer-"

"No," the doctor interrupted quickly. "Anderson's orders were explicit. No one is to know about the implant's failure outside of the crew. Even an inquiry to the medical or engineering team could tip off Alliance Command." Chakwas' mouth pressed into a line. "Assuming, it's the 'microphone' that's malfunctioned, how do we get it to turn back on?"

The Lieutenant turned slightly. "I have an idea ... but I think you're not going to like it."

Chakwas scowled, her arms folding across her chest. "Not a promising start, Lieutenant."

"Well," he stopped to draw a deep breath, "without contacting the engineer to get a sense of how it should work, the only thing that I can tell from these scans and diagrams is that it doesn't." Kaidan paused, thinking of the way he'd plucked at the wiring of his toy as a child, slowly testing to find out the role of each component as he worked to unravel the puzzle. "I think the only thing we can do is tinker with it until we get it right."

"_Tinker_?" Both of the doctor's slender brows were raised. She added, her voice strained with incredulity, "You presumably want to cut open Commander Shepard's head to access a device embedded in it and try '_tinkering_' with until she tells you that she can hear again?"

* * *

**Dr. Chakwas** smoothed a hand over the Commander's head, gently draping her loose curls over one shoulder. There was something about that little frame, the disarming wide-eyed stare that plucked at Chakwas' maternal instincts against her will. She gently brushed the backside of her hand across the pale, cold, and sweaty skin of Shepard's forehead. "I promise – this will be quick." The doctor knelt slowly, bringing herself eye-level to the patient, small and scared, lying on her side. "The local anesthetic should take care of the pain from the incision," she whispered, her voice soft and warm. "I want you to squeeze my hand if you start to feel anything. Let us know when you can hear the music, okay?"

Kaidan Alenko's head popped into view. "Any preference, Commander? I think Joker's downloaded half of the extranet for you to choose from."

She shook her head lightly, violet eyes fixing on a spot against the far wall, as if she were spinning and needed something to look at to steady herself. "Wait," she added quietly. "Something classical."

"Classical it is." The Lieutenant disappeared from view again, though his smell lingered.

Shepard returned her eyes to the doctor, a small smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. "Rodger and I would go hear the symphonies play, crouching on the stoops of stage doors in winter, everything covered in that faint yellow glow from the lights inside," she whispered. "He liked the music; I liked the way the booming made the walls tremble. It's the only thing that sounds as it should – music. It's tinny and light when it feels thin, and deep and full of bass when it feels thick and rumbly."

Chakwas' fingers gently pushed a few errant curls away from the Commander's eyes. "Just try to relax. It will all be over soon."

...

There were no words to describe it – not accurately, not truly, though Shepard tried.

It began to build slowly: a single buzz, high-pitched, trembling; it grew louder as other strands of sound fell in behind it, subtle though stronger and sharper, both high and low, both shrill and rumbled; it hummed with pitch for long seconds, slowly dissolving its pieces and notes until it became a single roar, a single body, a single sound.

And then discord, as other noises broke off from the harmony: the beeping of the vitals monitor, chatter in the distance, the Lieutenant's breathing, Chakwas' little sigh, the strands of some strange melody floating through the room, the whoosh and hush and whirr of the Normandy's air filters ...

It was the cacophony of a symphony coming to tune.  
It was the soundtrack of their lives, though all were nearly oblivious to it.

"Yes," Shepard hissed, startled by the sound of her own voice ringing through her ears, echoing through her throat and chest. "It's back. Okay."

_Oh-thay._

* * *

**Ashley Williams** surveyed the breakfast offerings in the Normandy's small mess area with thinly veiled disgust. She had gravitated towards the bowl of reheated eggs, as was her usual morning custom at the Eden Prime garrison, when their smell wafted towards her nostrils, and she was at once reminded of how a very similar meal of eggs had been left in a dusty patch of what used to be field just a few days ago, on that day when ...

She turned abruptly, swallowing hard to force her stomach down from where it had apparently risen in her throat.

No.  
No, she couldn't eat those eggs again – not again after that day she'd vomited them, the day her entire unit died.

Kaidan Alenko edged past her, greedily scooping large heaps of those cursed eggs onto a waiting plate. "They're the best thing on the breakfast buffet," he called, noticing her behind him.

Ashley shut her eyes tightly, willing herself not to gag as that rotten, sulfurous smell crept closer to her. "I- I hate eggs," she stammered. "I really, really _hate_ eggs."

"Oh."

She cracked open one eye, noticing that Alenko stood close-by, though he held the plate out and to his side away from her. "Is that why you never come to breakfast?" he inquired honestly, his head tilting slightly.

"No," Ashley replied quickly, waving her hand in front of her as if the motion could push the lingering hints of egg away. "It's just that I don't know what to do without a duty roster and a schedule, I guess. It'll be different once we start going on missions and stuff, I guess, but when we're just ship-board ... Not really sure if I should be sleeping or getting breakfast or what. Just feel kind of _useless_, I guess."

Kaidan raised a brow. "Lots of guesses there, Chief." He paused before adding, "You do good and important work in the armory. Weapons are only useful if they're working."

"Still," Ashley retorted, unsure of how to vocalize to her superior what she wanted to add, how else to put to words that pervasive feeling of uselessness and unfamiliarity that had settled over her. "Still, I feel like a fish out of water sometimes."

"Good thing we're not in water," Kaidan parried, grinning. The grin slowly faded as he realized that no witty retort would come of the smart-mouthed Chief. "You've made friends," he added earnestly. "I hear you're organizing some sort of 'movie night' for later."

Ashley shrugged. "Friends are fine, but that's not my job. I like the crew, I think I fit in ... but I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with myself. You know?"

She had never thought herself such a creature of routine, but there had been something that Ashley had liked about the comfort of order – she knew each day when she'd awake, what she'd eat, what she'd do. And just like that it had all been pulled out from under her. And just like that she hadn't been able to find it again.

Kaidan shook his head. "Well, that should change once you get in the field." He paused to purse his lips in thought. "Back to breakfast, then? So, no eggs. The fruit isn't too bad – should be pretty fresh since we just restocked at the Citadel. I'd avoid it once we get too far out, though. You don't want to know how it's stored."

"I don't," she agreed with a sigh. Her mother and father had long stressed the importance of a large morning meal – and she had awakened a good hour before her younger siblings back in their school days, helping her mother to set the table and cook the massive amount of eggs, bacon, and toast required to feed four growing girls. But that had been advice from a different chapter of her life. That had been a set routine.

Ashley turned from the Lieutenant, moving cautiously towards the other serving platters scattered across the large table. She reached into a bowl overflowing with a hard, spiny fruit that she didn't recognize, grabbing one of the strange specimens as curiosity overcame her.

"That's not for you," a mechanical voice snapped from behind her. Ashley looked back over one shoulder, tensing involuntarily as she found the turian, Garrus, standing very close to her. He motioned towards the piece of fruit she still held in one hand. "You can't eat that," he sounded again, plucking the piece of fruit from her loosened grasp.

"_Sorry,_" she spat, recoiling. "I assumed if it's out here it would be for everyone."

The turian's mandibles whirred with what appeared to her to be annoyance, as he added drily, "It will make you sick to eat food for turians and quarians. I _assumed_ you wouldn't want to spend all day in the ladies room."

Slowly, her grandfather's stories began to register, of how the occupying turian force at Shanxi had become so ill after eating the human food stores that they were hardly able to put up a resistance once Alliance reinforcements had arrived to retake the colony (something that he'd often felt had led the Alliance to believe he was embellishing or was trying to cover up his own his ineptitude when he described the overwhelming force to which he had surrendered).

"Right," Ashley demurred with a sigh, moving along the edge of the table to where a plate of diced pineapple lay. "I … I'd forgotten about that."

The wretched stench of eggs assaulted her nose yet again as Kaidan appeared at her side, hefting a large pitcher. "Coffee, Chief? It only partially tastes like mud."

She shook her head violently as an unbridled wave of emotion washed through her, and she pushed away from the mess hall table, from the eggs, from the strange fruit, from the turian. It was all too much. "No!" she cried sharply, her brows knitting. "I'm—I'm going to back to the garage."

She walked quickly, ignoring the protests of her growling stomach. Whatever Alenko and the turian were to make of that strange outburst, she didn't want to know. She angrily jabbed her finger into the button on the elevator, praying that the doors would at least shut quickly. _The guns don't make me feel like this. That's a start, at least_.

And just like that, she'd found some constant - unexpected and surprised: Ashley Williams would never eat breakfast again.

* * *

**Kaidan Alenko** stared down at his full plate, the hunger that had been eating at him ebbing out of his fingertips as it was replaced by a strange and quiet rage. He set the plate down gently, turning to stare at the closed door to the Commander's quarters, the door that had remained closed for three days now as the ship made its way through relays and systems to Feros.

_That's not what Anderson would have done_, he thought bitterly, this odd anger propelling him forward towards the door. Williams needed reassurance, needed someone to listen and validate – as they all did – and that was the Commander's job.

Scowling, he punched the button for the door chime, waiting impatiently before pressing it again. And again.

In the long minutes he waited a sort of rationalization set upon him. They were all bound to follow a woman who had proved little more than a ghost since the ship became hers, and in doing so, frustrations amongst the crew had reached a tipping point. Many had looked to Kaidan in her absence, such as the Chief, and it drained him. He was weary of playing Commander; it was time for Shepard to do her damn job.

The doors parted slowly, revealing the small and disheveled woman on the other side, squinting against the brightness of the common area. Though Shepard's natural state was apparently one of being unkempt, the darkness to her eyes, matted and frizzy curls, and deep, black circles seemingly etched into her pale skin under her eyes ... "I'm sorry, ma'am," he whispered, startled. "Were you sleeping?"

"No," Shepard grunted, moving aside slightly so that the Lieutenant could enter her quarters. "I cannot sleep. What is it?"

The room was dark and barren, devoid of all personal touches save for two small pictures awkwardly taped against the far wall. The only illumination came from the large terminal screen across from her bed, the mission briefing for Feros displayed. His eyes finally began to adjust to the dimness of the room, and fell on the two pictures taped to the wall by Shepard's bedside – one, an old and weathered photograph made dim with age of what appeared to be a dark boy, no more than 10 or 12, holding a young girl in his lap, both smiling, her large violet eyes sparkling with a happiness that seemed long-forgotten now; the other, a portrait of Captain Anderson, presumably from his personnel file, although potentially stolen from his file in the medical bay.

Shepard leaned against her desk expectantly, her arms folded across her chest. She was unusually nervous and jittery, her fingers twitching with a pent-up irritation.

The anger and courage seeped from him, like he had been a damp towel suddenly wrung dry, the droplets of strength scattering to the floor under Shepard's steady glare. A thousand expressions flitted across her features, a constant wildness and terror sparking through her cloudy eyes. "Do not," she whispered, panted, sighed – soft and breathy and delicately shrill. "_Do not_ say it."

"Say what?" he breathed in similar tone, at once confused and disoriented.

Shepard pushed off from the desk, stepping closer. "The way you look at me, Alenko ... that confusion and dislike. You agree with the Staff Commander, then? You have come here to say you have measured me and found me wanting. You desire what he did – to box me up, to put me on a shelf somewhere in Arcturus."

Alenko blinked. "I don't understand."

Shepard paused, her fingers burying themselves into the unruly tangle of hair bunching about the nape of her neck. "I assumed you read my file," she stated evenly, her eyes searing into him.

"I did," Kaidan admitted cautiously, "but only the parts relevant to the implant."

An expression of genuine surprise flickered across the Commander's face as she was silent for long, contemplative minutes. "Most people with access to my file would have read it and sold the story. The Alliance has not released the details, not about Akuze or about the surgery."

"I'm not most people," he replied, his eyes narrowing slightly.

"No," Shepard sighed, her fingers still twisting through the matted nest of dark curls. "I suppose you are not."

Kaidan blinked again, his head reeling. The Commander sighed softly, a slight frown settling upon her lips. "There was a Staff Commander who raised an objection to my posting here. He said it was not fitting because I did not have experience with aliens and his credentials were superior. It was not; it was because I am deaf. I had to fight the objection. That is why I was delayed in coming here – no paperwork, no armor."

The Lieutenant remained quiet.

"I knew you did not like me on Eden Prime, and then after reading my file, you looked at me differently – but not like the rest, not with pity or sympathy or disdain." Shepard lowered her eyes, studying the empty floor between them.

Kaidan had no feeling, no opinion. He was damp and heavy under the thickness of the air, and supremely uncomfortable. He wished now he had never entered the room.

Shepard lifted her face to him once more, ugly and contorted, her lips warbling, her voice raw. "Do not say it." It was a barely audible squeak, a breath, a prayer. "_Please_." Her body was small, but her presence filled the room to its brim, every corner overflowing with her darkness.

"I don't understand," he repeated again, his hands beginning to tremble, his eyes falling to study his boots. He had disturbed some balance by entering, like shoving a fist into a full glass and watching the liquid splash and dribble and stream down its sides.

"I do not know who I am anymore," she said slowly, gasping, as if the words had been wrest from her by a supernatural power. "I used to know. I used to have an identity that I was _so sure of_ and now I do not know if that was the right one at all. I hated them. I hated them for what they did to me, for what they forced me into, for their technology and their implant. And then on Citadel ... I _understood_. I needed it. I never ..." She stopped to lick her lips. "Why are you here?"

Reluctantly, Kaidan's gaze shifted to meet the fiery, longing stare – a mingled and confused expression of wistfulness and hate. ""The crew needs order and guidance, reassurance. It's supposed to come from you, and it hasn't yet. I …" He paused. "I suppose I needed some too, to know that it would come."

She turned from him, shaking her head lightly. "I relied on Anderson the way I relied upon the implant, and I did not recognize either reliance until I was without. I am not some hero. I am not some pillar of strength and integrity. I do what I am told." She wheeled about, her hair loosening from its knot and whipping into her face, splaying at her sudden jerk across the stained crimson lips and searing stare. "Who's to tell me now? A picture on a wall?"

The Lieutenant stiffened. "Do as he would. Do as he _trusts_ you will!"

She snorted in reply. "You make it sound so easy, Alenko. Okay."

_Okay._


End file.
